Waiting For That Rocket

My friend Elisa, blogger extraordinaire over at Ophelia’s Webb ( http://www.opheliaswebb.com/ ), has a series going on this month called “Pas de Deux,” a month long take on “love” in all its forms and functions. She took submissions from people from all over the world to guest post. Like many, I wrote something for consideration.

The writing was some of the most honest I have ever done. Elisa, being a rockstar, gave me some feedback. However, I chickened out at taking it. Today I am developing it more, and posting it in a safer venue, my own blog. The nice thing about having it here is that instead of hundreds (thousands?) of visitors, I may get a dozen. Not that many people will read it. I know it mitigates the vulnerability factor if no one reads what I write, but just saying the words – even if virtually – is enough to freeze my insides with fear.

Stay tuned for my words – much editing needs to be done before ready for “mass” consumption.

I’ve written a lot about the awesome influence that my parents have had in my life (hint: it’s immeasurable). But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other people who have helped in forming me.

My family has never been a Waltons kind of family (thank god). Although close, loving and supportive, we weren’t perfect. And that’s fine. Who really wants to be? But to this day, when the chips are down, my family is there for me. And that cannot be undersold.

But this post (as you can see from the headline) isn’t to talk about my immediate family. It’s to talk about my grandparents.

As my father pointed out when my paternal grandfather (Poppy) passed away, I am incredibly lucky to have had both sets of grandparents until I was an adult. I was 18 when Poppy passed. I had a veritable lifetime of memories with him. I was almost 25 before I lost my next grandparent – my paternal grandmother (Gummy). Now, at almost 30, I still have both my maternal grandparents.

This has all been thrown in acute relief. I learned this morning that my grandfather (Granddad) had what they’re considering a “mini-stroke” this weekend. There is nothing like an illness to put the mortality of our loved ones in sharp perspective.

My earliest memories are lined with images of both sets of grandparents. Summers spent at respective summer getaways, Thanksgiving spent at the Kid’s Table, the tradeoff at Ludlow after my parents had time away from us. My grandparents, all four of them, are incredible people. Who did/still do incredible things.

It’s not by happenstance that my parents instilled in us a love of service, the same was instilled in them. Between Rotary, volunteering with various Adirondack Park conservation agencies, to church, to schools, to you name it, all my grandparents have been active within their community for the majority of their lives.

Poppy was in WWII, Granddad in Korea. Both grandmothers, and all four great-grandmothers, went to college. My goal is to be half the person that they were, they are, and that they wish me to be. Maybe someday I will be. I just hope I get there before it’s too late.

I have a fairly wide open view of the world and the universe. Besides my belief that there is something out there mystically, I doubt that humans and Earth-bound animals stand alone as the Universe’s sentient beings. That being said, I’m willing to accept that there are folks out there who believe differently than me.

You may see this as a random post. You are not wrong. But struck by insomnia, I found myself tragically glued to an unknown special on the History Channel about aliens and they’re stealing our DNA and hybridizing animals and humanstoPLOTOURESTRUCTIONAHHHHHHHHHH!!! Being the History Channel, they did try and keep things relatively balanced, for every crackpot like Erich von Däniken they did have some not so insane “scholar.”

My issues with the so-called “scholarly work” that people like von Däniken are doing are myriad. Allow me to enumerate.

Completely mitigates that any non-Western European civilization was able to create works of wonder without the aid of aliens.

For example, von Däniken and others postulate that things like the great Mesoamerican societies couldn’t have aligned their pyramids on the Cardinal Ordinates without alien intervention or created works of natural art like the Nazca Lines.

One man on the show (I apologize for knowing neither the name of the man or the show), kept bringing up ancient Sumerian and Egyptian creation myths as examples of alien intervention. He claimed that because hieroglyphs and cuneiform (both things that we can’t be 100% certain are actually perfectly translated) depict stories and images of humans bodies/animal heads (and vice versa) that those are actually alien science experiments. He also said that because Egyptian deities were shown to have wings that they were obviously aliens.

What about Western creation myths? I have already established I am not necessarily a Judeo-Christian kind of girl, but who am I to say that, because I don’t believe, that means that God and the angels that follow are actually all aliens and they’re trying to steer us towards self-destruction?

To be clear: I am nobody to say that. Certainly no one to be published or go on national television spewing small minded, Orientalist rhetoric. In my mind, von Däniken and those of his ilk are worse than the men and women who at one point believed the sun revolved around the Earth. At least 15th century peasants had the excuse of not knowing any better. These people are just dumb.

I tend to focus on the possibilities a lot. What could happen. If x, y, or z, happens maybe c, b, d will after that.

Today I had a rather novel experience.

I’ve wanted a big leg tattoo for a long time. Years, in fact. For more than a year, I’ve dreamed of going to see Watson, an absolutely incredible tattoo artist here in Portland. After seeing many friends walk out of his studio with tattoos so perfectly suited to them, I’ve wanted to have a piece designed by him.

Despite this, I’ve been hemming and hawing over whether to contact him for a consultation. He’s absolutely fantastic, but he’s also not inexpensive. Today was the closest I had gotten to sending him an email, and still. I hemmed and I hawed.

Then I had a revelation.

Fuck it.

It’s my leg, it’s my money. And it’s something I want for me.

I’m ready for it.

Bring on 2011, fuck it is here to stay.

Here is where I’m supposed to lay out the things I’ve achieved over the past 365 days, as well as what I hope to achieve over the next 365.

Per usual, most of my achievements center around my interactions with others. I have become friends with folks I never would have imagined knowing let alone befriending prior to Twitter and this new me that’s developed.

I’ve taken two improv classes and learned oh so much about who I am/want to be.

I wrote a novel.

I got to a (predominantly) honest place in a couple relationships where honesty was needed.

I drank less soda and consumed more coffee.

I shrank (no – seriously – I’m back to where I was in high school size wise).

I found the ability to let things go.

I found my inner “fuck it.”

And I learned oh so much about me.

I guess in a time where there is so much uncertainty concerning everything, my life has been steady and constant.

The breakthroughs I had this year don’t seem to be as big as the one’s last year, but I’m okay with that. I’m content to keep sliding through life, writing, working and drinking coffee with friends.

I swear like a sailor.

I’ll admit it – here before god and the intertubes – I have absolutely foul language. I tend to avoid it online because things that happen online tend to stay public long after the fact (e.g. earlier this year the Library of Congress acquired all tweets sent out after March of 2006). This is why I surprised even myself when I decided to tattoo a certain 4-letter word on my arm.

To be clear, the message is in braille. It’s far enough up my fore arm to be easily covered. And it’s also a message that I felt I literally had to have a permanent reminder driven into my skin.

For those who can’t read braille, it says, “F*** It.” If you’ve read my post about Rachel’s improv class (I’m taking it for the second time), then you know that this is our class motto. A slightly crude way of saying, “Go big or go home,” if you’re going to fail, do it with authority. Great things come from mistakes, I just have to have the ability to “f*** it,” and go for it. Tennyson wrote, “Better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.” This is something that can be adapted to the rest of life.

When considering all the ways that I could say this, “commit to the bit” and “fail big,” are two ways that my classmates and I will say “f*** it,” in class. I toyed with the idea of getting “fail big” as a tattoo.

But when it comes down to it, the F Bomb really is one of my all time favorite words (sorry, Mom and Dad) and F*** It just really resonates with me.

Suffice it to say, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget to just “f*** it” from here on out.

I have a tough time explaining my thoughts about God and/or religion. I am not an atheist, I am not agnostic, but I’m also fairly certain I’m not a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or Hindu.

I believe there is something bigger than us out there. To me that…entity?…does not fall into any Judeo-Christian category, it’s just something that is. For me, this is never clearer then when I’m walking in the woods and see a hawk or eagle soaring over head. How can something that is so majestic be accidental?

I understand people of faith. It’s nice to have something to cling to in times of trial and tribulation. To a certain extent, I’m jealous of people of faith. To believe so unfailingly that there is someone or something that is guiding their actions or reactions relieves a lot of personal responsibility. There are times I’ve toyed with the idea of returning to church, looking for that fulfillment that my mind doesn’t give me.

I also understand the hyper-rational. Why believe in something that is so intangible? Science has created a timeline for the universe that (at least to me) is irrefutable.

So how do I reconcile these warring ideas in my mind and heart?

There are three tenets that I believe/try to live my life by:

1. Treat others as you’d like to be treated: The Golden Rule cannot be undersold. Treat people with compassion and love and you will be treated with compassion and love in return.
2. “God doesn’t forgive because God never condemned.” This quote is from a Swedish movie called As It Is In Heaven and explains in seven words the issues I have with modern religions. I refuse to believe that if there is a sentient God that s/he/it is a vengeful judging being. When I die, if there is an afterlife (another concept I’m not completely sold on) I fully expect to be embraced with love.
3. “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints is when I carried you.” This iconic line is the conclusion to the “Footprints in the Sand” poem. As stated above, I’m not sure about any Judeo-Christian God, but I do believe there’s something up there that is looking out for us. We aren’t served up any more than we can handle, but for those times we feel like we are, that’s when something happens that eases that burden. That’s why when I’m at my lowest I go for a walk in the woods, and I see that hawk, and I’m reminded of the beauty in the world around me. To me this can’t be accidental.

I don’t know why this is the day that I’ve decided to write about my feelings on faith and religion, but since hearing that line from As it is in Heaven last night, all I can think of is, if there is a God, I want that God to be full of love and light, not the hate and judgement that so many religions seem to assert that it is.

Admittedly, I don’t know much about current events. I read enough headlines, and almost enough periodicals to call myself passably informed, but when it comes to the major players in national politics I don’t know as much as I once did.

That being said, I did know that Richard Holbrooke, the Special Envoy to Iraq and Afghanistan, passed away the other day (I read the headlines).

To me, the name “Richard Holbrooke” didn’t evoke much when it was announced that he was the Special Envoy. After reading this article from the New York Times, I’m starting to regret this gap in my knowledge, and mourning the gap in my education concerning American diplomacy.

Unless you take a high level university government or history course, chances are you also don’t know much about American diplomacy. So much time and energy is spent on military victories and losses – the Boston Tea Party, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Tet Offensive, and many more – but almost no time is spent on the diplomacy that is far more likely responsible for the overarching changes that happen in our foreign policy.

Richard Holbrooke was the driving force behind the Serbian cease fire in the mid-90s. I had never heard his name before 2009. All this makes me wonder is how many more unsung diplomatic heroes are there out there? Those men and women who fight our military battles are undoubtedly heroes. But we shouldn’t forget about those men and women who broker the agreements who bring those soldiers home.

It’s so easy to be a cheerleader.

Whether it be for a friend or a coworker, I never have a tough time giving people a positive message. That’s mostly because my friends and coworkers are pretty fantastic, but that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about the confusion that comes with being a cheerleader for oneself. It’s so easy to see what others are doing right, but even easier when seeing what one is doing wrong. Didn’t reconcile that drawer correctly, that comma was in the wrong place, completely botched that drink order.

Why are we – why am I – so hypercritical of ourselves? And how do we – do I – make that stop?

I don’t know whether it’s a cultural thing or a me thing, or maybe a little bit of both. But just once I’d like to be able to say, “You know what, you did that just right. And you are okay. And doggone it, people like me.”