Task #98

Something Out of Character

Most people would describe me as analytical, focused, a rule-follower that is very goal oriented. My achievement orientation often causes a lot of mistakes or humorous experiences. For instance, I often miss details. I once wore a pair of shoes for two months with the new shoe tissue in the toes until a friend who borrowed them pulled them out and laughed “what is WRONG with you?” I am a do-er a mover, a shaker, I’ve got places to go, I can’t slow down for tissues! So you get the point. I am far from creative.

But in doing this list, I am forced to try things perhaps I wouldn’t do on my own. I use the list as an excuse to experience new things and try out different versions of myself.

Embarking on task #98 has brought a lot of laughs out of my circle of loved ones…”you’re doing what?”

“I am making an audition tape to be on a reality TV show.”

“But you don’t watch reality TV…do you?”

“Only ones with food…:

And thus, I began to prepare an audition tape for the Next Food Network Star. I basically spent all weekend thinking of my unique perspective, of designing a fun recipe, of organizing a spontaneous script. I wasn’t going to write anything down. I was just going to practice the words and phrases and follow my gut…and that’s what I did this weekend…I creatively shaped and plucked and paid attention to details. The words. The ingredients. The instruction, the inflexion. It was a masterful exercise in creativity, not taking myself too seriously, but trusting myself as well.

My friend Yvonne came on over and filmed it for me, and then kindly stuck around to make sure my fabulous Break-up brownies were mildly edible (they were! I ate almost half the pan that afternoon!). It was embarrassing at first to be speaking this to an audience, but I quickly became comfortable…I was having fun!

Watching yourself brings about a whole new self-consciousness that defies even middle school angst. Have you ever made a tape of yourself? There is a degree of foreignness there: that’s my voice? My demeanor? Could that really be me? Yep it is…that’s me.

Watching the video releases a small cringe in me. I hope to be creative and enjoy myself, but the task reveals an undertow that says “I have something to say. I want to be heard.” It’s an audition after all: I am attempting to convince the judge of my value as a contestant.

This is one task that is not about the end result. It is HIGHLY unlikely that I will be taken seriously, but that was not the point. The purpose was to engage in something I’ve never done before that others would say “wasn’t typical” of me….but perhaps, as I check off task after task, I become a person that defies typicality in whatever I endeavor.

#3 Befriend Someone over 80

I just wrote about my friendship with Jack and those relationships that teach us...but let me tell you a little more about why this was on my list...

Jack tells me frequently that the number one problem people his age face is lonliness. He has a supportive family and attends church, and has the blessing of a caretaker who spends hours with him most days of the week. But interacting with people not in his age range is difficult. Many people in nursing homes, most he tell me, only have visitors a few times each YEAR! Can you imagine not having any conversation, about the weather, the price of gas, Dancing with the Stars, how salty those French fries were, for the entire month?

The main reason I wanted to befriend a person over 80 was the fact that I was lonely, too. I had recently moved to the area and establishing friendship takes patience, tempo, timing. I needed to feel connected to something. It was pretty quick getting set up as a volunteer at the closest assisted living/nursing home to my house. Within two weeks, I was connected with Jack. For the last four months, I’ve seen him weekly. I sent him postcards from Costa Rica. I pick up snacks for him at the market, and clip out funny comics or bring him pictures kids make for me. He tells me stories of his youth, gives me advice about the economy and willingly philosophizes with me on a variety of topics. He is bright, friendly, and he likes me. Jack makes me feel like I belong. Like I matter.

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is madeby the friends we choose.”

Tennessee Williams

Hands down, Jack is one of the biggest blessings of my life right now. I am less lonely because of him, and I hope, he is less lonely because of me.

#11 and #36 in ONE!

Visiting a Washington Winery
Picking an Apple from a Washington Farm

East of here, through the mountains, the Washington land produces sweetness. Sugars for which it is known. The almost three hour drive from my house offers an array of landscapes to stimulate the journey…moving from freeway emerald city urban, the deciduous ski country, giving way to fertile low lands, and then desert shrubs, and then, pow! Areas of orchards, vineyards, speckled with huge barns that read FRUIT ANTIQUES!

I guess the tradition here is so old that you can purchase fruit antiques.

Eastern Washington speckles color right now, the fingers of the fauna shooting off color and teasing the eye…maybe you’ll find something sweet here.

I needed to get away this weekend. I required, as the saying goes, “a change in perspective” What was so wrong with the perspective I was taking before my trip? Two words jump to mind: anxiety and complacency. The anxiety I believe boiling up and down due to all the negativitiy and uncertainty surrounding me these past few weeks. You see, it is in my job description and most likely personality structure to find things that are deficient, impaired, weak and “fix them.” I pay attention to the uncomfortable aspects of experiences, both on a case by case basis and on a cultural level. It is ingrained into my demeanor to notice such energies and analyze them, and most often, to respond to them in order to give way to relief, or improvement of some sort.

And my experience has lead to efficiency at it.

Yet, one cannot provide sufficient relief for many problems. Suffering often sums up greater than the hope I am engendering. It is in these seasons, usually a period of 5 weeks, that I find I need to “reset” “revision” and allow myself to accept grace and start my perspective fresh.

Thus, the escape. For me, traveling (which is self defined as staying at least one night away) most often enables this catalyzing change in perspective.

This weekend I found myself saying “everyone is so more friendly around here.” They would recommend that I spend my money at different business than their, they would throw their heads back in easy laughter, they would easily reminisce about a story and so easily shared their passions when encouraged. One man called me “trouble” which I am when I am my most authentic happy K. And this got me to acknowledge that perhaps it wasn’t just the people of the place that were more open, more congenial and approachable and more community-minded. It was me. It was my fundamental approach to the experience to embrace it fully and make the Positivity mine. Now, it’s true the equation doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes the people aren’t so friendly no matter how open you are (I think of Paris). Even then, however, I do believe it is a synergy, this traveling. Traveling can reveal insecurity (let’s say with French pronunciation) and a sense of inadequacy (in navigating Paris’ streets) and a feeling of inferiority (in anything artist or edible). These feelings may be carried like invisible luggage and that burden may prevent you from truly being free and thus you don’t find the place or the people or the experience liberating at all…

Most of the time, however, I like the version of myself when traveling. I am more capable, more grateful, less analytical, more trusting of my intuition, less goal oriented and more gracious all around. This weekend I found myself noticing light, watching the colors around me more easily. I shot pictures without action or identification in them at all. This is not like me. I’ve expressed to others that I disdain about traveling pictures…you can’t even tell YOU were there” I like to stamp my pictures with something connecting me to it. Functionality is key. I consider “will I print this? Would someone actually like to look at this picture? Place it on a fridge.

This weekend, however, I took multiple shots of the same object just for the exposure to multiple perspectives. A young bud of practice…

The change of perspective, whether gained from traveling (to wine country), the words of an expert (it’s cancer) or a relationship (Mom, I want some more water) powerfully marks our lives in a way that we too quickly habituate to. I want to be the “Traveling K” more in the “Normal Day K” or even the “Weekend K” or “Lunchbreak K”…

Who are you when traveling?

#13 Habitat for Humanity

There is something fundamentally inspiring in helping a person build a home. Our faith and ability to experience pleasure develops as our capacity to grow communally develops. And the more we exclude or confine ourselves to like-minded people, the more limited our gratitude remains. Too often we mark out “this is my space, this is yours.” Stay on this side of the line. That line can mark being female, having a certain educated, claiming to be a particular faith or voting party, living in a certain neighborhood or country, having a significant relationship or not.

For many moments in my life, these boxes have constrained my ability to experience life fully. And I am proud that the list is helping me shatter some of those boxes…and I find balance that it is in the act of building a box for someone to live in that my own are destroyed.

What is home to you? I heard numbers once that most Americans move every 4 years. I would guess that the number is higher for those of us 35 and under, perhaps shifting to move jobs, alter relationship status, finish parts of our education or training. And this mobility can exacerbate a loss of identity, a diminishment of affiliation, a forced letting go of ritual and an abandonment o ritual. All the things to me, that says home.

“Hello, Welcome” “You can trust this place” “You know what to expect” “You can go out and explore the world, but you will come back to this place of groundedness” “This is safe”

Homes define us. Which is why so many of us feel pressured to “own” them (see previous post here) But more than a place with things, I believe home is our sense of groundedness. A sense of being nourished, a sense of cultivating roots in our beings…

And those foundations MUST be connected to others.

#24

Yep! I rode a motorcycle for the first time this last week! Let me tell you, there is something incredibly freeing about whizzing on a bike on the highway. The engagement with your surroundings makes the journey more alive, pulsing, more aware of the other travelers on the road, the details of the scenery, the state of the air and weather. Like any new experience involving the description "primal scream therapy" there was an inital fear and hestitancy...but after a few minutes of deep breathing, the fear of getting railed by another car lessened, and lo and behold, my body, my spirit relaxed. A balance ensued between adrenaline and new experience and peace, quite similar to experiences in Costa Rica. The next step is riding some more...