Be a Birdwatcher

Okay - for those of you who are exciting and expecting to read another post from Bird, I apologize for the confusion but not for the post. I, like you, have waited patiently for my darling daughter to pick up her pen again and greet us warmly with her beautiful, vulnerable prose. Unlike you - I have her password! So, I am offering this post to ask you, her followers, to coax a bit of music out of this songbird.

I consider myself to be a pretty decent "giver." I don't offer myself out of obligation; rather, I always find that I receive far more than I ever give to an effort that is meaningful and serves others. I am fortunate to be married to someone who is also a great giver. So, I guess that Katherine comes by her love of relationships and giving to others naturally. The downside of that lifestyle is that you seldom hear the appreciation - the gas if you will - to refill your engine. You are less likely to stop long enough to refuel -so it is not always correct to assume that your friends don't appreciate you. Sometimes it is as simple as never having the opportunity to say "thank you." Some givers actually are not very adept at being on the receiving end of someone's kindness. The act of giving becomes a competition, an obligation, which defeats the healthy attributes of sacrificial service. All of this is to say, that when we hear the sweet melodies of one that we love, we seldom pay attention until the music stops! So here is my plan to restart the "music."

I have two wonderful - actually three- wonderful children and while I play no favorites, I think that I find different ways to connect or identify with them. While all three of my kids love music, I have noticed, upon reflection, that I can more clearly see Katherine in the songs that I listen to. Ben and I share songs but Katherine often becomes the song. As a little one, we used to dance to "Dress You Up" by Madonna. We will definitely dance to that at her wedding!! As she grew up before our eyes, her joy in being a member of a choir only added to family hobby of concerts and music exploration. In recent years as she has been on distant continents, I have found much solace in songs that embody her. Her European journey opened "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. While in India, it was "Send Me" by Mercy Me. Her time in Costa Rica was made easier by a song from the movie Australia, "By the Boab Tree", by Ophelia of the Spirits. We even traded closing lines in e-mails, "I will sing you to me" - a great line from that movie. Recently, I listened to "Someone Like You" from Adele's 21 (thank you daughter Kristen for that CD). And I am sure the list will continue to grow.

But my assignment for you, is to consider the song that you believe most embodies our Bird. Consider each of these a tiny, little worm or breadcrumb that will pull her out of her writing "blah" and have her singing a new tune for us.

If that doesn't work, I will give you her password and you can write the next post.

Dad

PS - before I end up in trouble with her saying my friends must think something is wrong, I immediately discount that. What is wrong is eleven months with no post! That simple.

loving deeply; dreaming boldly

This one is for Josh Bull, the party that holds me accountable for transcribing these thoughts and threatens to disband our friendship if this project in community does not recommence. i believe it was he who coined the term (or at the very least introduced the concept to me) 'vagabonding' as a means of experiencing adventures in community.

when i am not singing opera-style, often wordless ballads at the top of my lungs while riding my bike across the vast expanse of a city i now call home, i am writing stories in my head. the menagerie of tales transcend upon my mind whether i am prepared to engage in the subjects or not. these stories are sometimes forgotten but more often, left unwritten. And then, one Friday night, the freest you've been in weeks, you sit before your computer with reckless abandon, reveling in brussel sprouts, a mason jar with good wine and a night all to yourself to retell the story.

Isn't it unfortunate that the times in your life when everything seems most chaotic are the same periods in which you abandon the things you most desperately need and deep-down desire? Your prayers remain unvoiced, your letters and phones calls to the people who care for you unconditionally go unspoken, your dreams seem farther from reach than they ever have before.

(What had turned into) months ago I set out to narrate the community I encountered. And, oh, it has happened. I assure you this much. But the tides turn and suddenly you are trust into a life that feels too much to handle and you barely have a moment to catch your breath, to wonder when you'll feel whole again. But amidst it all...there it is. Community in ways that you have never experienced before. People and ideas intersecting your life...changing you. challenging you. showing you more about yourself than you ever, ever wanted to know.

and sometimes you discover things about yourself that you kinnnnndddda didn't want to know. and thus begins tonights musings.

I never dreamed how utterly humbling working in the food service industry could be. if you haven't done it, i won't say i whole heartedly condone the idea, but it sure does bring a lot of perspective into your life. i can say without hesitation that I have experienced parts of my own personality that i never knew existed. if i mutter to one more person my devastation of their wasting enough food to feed an entire village, i deserve to be kicked to the curb. these jobs have allowed me to feel the full spectrum-- the rage, the shame, the shock, the sheer amusement in the entitlement felt by others. Fearing I had lost my sense of self, I broke down to my dad confessing the shame of these emotions and what felt like the inability to love others. Without missing a beat he humbled me further. he said something to this extent: Katherine, this is what makes us real. we are imperfect and it is through these experiences that we relate to others. Put more blatenly by my lovely friend Andrea: You think you're mean? I like 'mean Katherine.' I can relate to her better anyways.

So this brings me to a very round about way of questioning how I can better love others. I have an admitted fascination with making 'problem trees,' (thank you graduate school). Not because I necessarily take joy in stewing in problems, but because I have come to recognize the value in addressing root causes. And that's what you set out to do when you create a problem tree. Dig deep. Get to the root of the root of the root. It is only there that you discover the capacity to holistically address the said problem.

Being in community doesn't say we have to agree. It doesn't say we have to compromise our opinions or our very being. And, I guess it doesn't mean that we don't get frustrated. angry. outraged even. But it does ask that we love one another. And it makes us better people for it.

I guess its like this:

Community may not be the one person that steals your bike, but it is the half dozen other people who offer you their's;
Community may not be the five customers who accuse you of doing something wrong, but it is the one customer who acts truly grateful;
Community may not be the friend who makes me feel unworthy, but it is the ones who love you despite your insecurities.
Put plainly, community has a way of really sneaking up on you.

Per usual I digress. The problem tree. Here we are. It has become apparent to me that two thematic roots in my life may be two faces of the same coin-- an unattainable desire to please others and an unreasonable fear in failing.
Thus, my world seems fractured when I find myself unable to love others the way I'd hope or even more, loving more than can be returned, and then feeling unlovable. Equally challenging is the constant dreams that get tossed aside or quickly replaced with what seems easier, safer or more likely to succeed.


But I was thinking,
What if our greatest faults or deepest fears were merely loving too deeply and dreaming too boldly? I'm still grappling whether to pursue these but regardless,
I pray that I would have the courage and capacity to love more deeply and dream more boldly.

scratched on my hand

Its five AM on a friday morning and in case you were wondering, this is when they vaccum the library. I have the remnants of four blog entry ideas scratched on my hand and have yet to sit down and actually write them. epic failure in communications, my friends. but, soon after my last blog entry I realized two very crucial elements of community:
1. community hits you when you're not seeking it and
2. you just can't make this stuff up.
for instance-- i had the perfect table picked out in the corner of a little rustic coffee shop in northern virginia. I just knew that this old and wonderful piece of furniture would provide a lovely time and an interesting story. all i got was an ear full from a jaded middle-aged man on the woes of the public school system. mind you, he picked the wrong girl to complain to about public schools.for the first time this semester, i might have actually looked interested in my stats book. and he had a lot of knowledge he hoped to impart about statistics as well.
but, i suppose that is the beauty in it. We can choose to intentionally seek community in our lives but we can't necessarily choose the parameters of where it will happen, with whom, and when. It just happens.
and why would we want it any other way?

about the same time something did happen though, unexpected and unplanned. i received a boatload of inspiration from a woman named Mariel.
The back story is that I have been doing quite a bit of house sitting lately.I find it hugely fascinating to get a look into other people's lives (and pantries, especially). Not kidding, some people have real Picasso's in their houses and elevators! Their dogs eat better than I do.
Enter the housekeeper.
On monday morning of this particular week I had a little overlap with this very woman. I had just been on a run in the pouring rain, walked the dog in the storm and lost the key when bending over to scoop the poop in a sea of the neighbors grass (found it!) and I sit down across the table from this woman, the housekeeper.
So my mom asks, what does a housekeeper even do all day if the family is out of town? She takes one load of laundry down the elevator and then she reads the newspaper, of course. For hours.
But i had a few wonderful moments of syrupy accented conversation. She's from 'the islands.' she takes three buses to get to this house. she moved here because she wanted her sons to have everything that she didn't have.
What did that mean actually?
Because the nine year olds in this house have i-phones and macbooks.
Education. She divulged to me all about her experience and family on the island, but what stuck with me was her uncompromising devotion to the fact that her chidren would have the opportunity to go to college. it was far from a possibility for her, but she changed her very life in order for them to have this gift.
So as I scoop ice cream with 2 bachelor degrees and almost 2 masters degrees, I have a bit more of a perspective on what it means to have both a job and an education. I also am gaining a greater sense of the sacrifices that parents make, for things that, to children, just seem like a given.

all that to say, hang tight, they are all scratched down and will come...

the gadfly

just waiting in line for my cup of chai. far too normal of a scene for me. but today was a little different because i was in a new place, tucked away in the far corner of the bowels of a little bookshop. an older gentleman startled me with his slightly grizzly appearance as his hand reached in front of me for a refill on coffee, which I later would determine to be neither the first refill nor the last. admittedly, i was slightly put off by being cut in line. ah, human nature! i hate that i succumb to the impatience of the line. but, i do! i do! scanning the room, i spy the last empty table and scatter my belongings across it, ready to settle into a focused writing session of an impending paper deadline.

in just a few moments, it comes to my attention that i am going to need a new seat with an outlet. a quick glance around the room brings my eye to the man from the coffee bar. recognizing that his work, too, is strewn across the table (lording over a well-positioned outlet) and pinpointing him as someone who i won't be expected to have a conversation with, I approach him.

"do you mind if i share your table?"

turns out he is a chatty sort of chap. the thick manuscript set to one side of his computer prompts me to inquire deeper into his life. he is a novelist, has been writing for years. some history,some mythology, the last two dark ones. mostly fiction.

"do you always work in these sorts of places?"

with a thoughtful gaze and a number of hand gestures he describes the flexibility of writing in a place where you are accountable to no one. a place where you can create your own space and become fully engaged in your work as you become a part of the story. if he is talking malarky, he sure has me fooled. i am hanging on every word.

he wears thick rimmed glasses tucked over gray tufts of hair and a hat with the traces of what once must have been quite a feather. he holds scraps of paper covered with notes and mumbles many a word to himself. his most recent title didn't ring a bell to me and honestly, i wanted him to remain nameless, there is a strange kind of empowerment in not knowing.
he listens and asks thoughtful questions.

its as if he knows everyone that comes in and each one wants to share our outlet.
"i forgot to tell you about that spot. you... are the power seat." for someone 'not accountable to anyone,' he seems
to maintain a deep sense of community and a genuine concern for all who overlap his space in this place.

"These are the kind of places where people come who have potential and who really do things," he says.

and he means it. he sees it in the other tables around us and he sees it in me.

i fear we have lost the essence of community. we don't engage with the people, even in the places that we frequent daily. it would be far to presumptuous to share a table with a stranger. i know i am guilty of prefering to huddle in the corner with my headphones on staring at a computer screen. how has it come to this?
and when did it become such a burden to ask real questions?
i have always had this habit of sitting on the coffee shop or on the subway creating stories about the lives of the pople around me. but the thing is, they have stories. incredible ones. real ones.

I want to take back the tables. i want to pull up a chair next to a stranger and take a moment to see the world through her eyes. i want to find these people with potential, the ones who are 'really doing things.' i want to soak in their dreams and be inspired.
and that, friends, is just what i intend to do.

so, here's to you author extroidinaire who returned to the table only to find a note
scratched on a napkin. you have started something. because as you said, things happen in these places.

where it all began

The story that begins here almost too quickly spiraled into the tale of a quintessential hopeless romantic. Never Been Kissed cum How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days all wrapped up in a little ditty to the tune of He’s Just Not that Into You. The storyline unfolds something like this: Girl can count number of dates on hand in 25 years and is hopeless at meeting people, despite an abundance of advice from friends about wearing more make-up and not ‘dressing like a prairie woman.’ She has no problem attracting (unsolicited) wingmen. She’s probably had dozens. But, that’s about it. To complicate the matter, girl can’t take best friend anywhere without becoming sidekick to girl having all boys fall at feet. Thus, girl plots adventures through life where she unabashedly meets interesting fellows of all walks in unexpected places. Heroine gains confidence and all-out gusto as she confronts her (sometimes) social awkwardness and meets dashing young fellows who otherwise she would have just openly stared at in posh coffee shops and new-age art galleries.

That was all well and good and I surely would have provided you with at least a few chortles as you breezed through the entertaining tales of ridiculous encounters and intriguing cameos. And, well, that’s about it.

The reality is, it all starts like this: After applying for your 30th some-odd job in a couple months time, you begin to return to the childhood dreams of what you actually thought you might be. Because, damn, if starbucks is a stretch, then you may as well be reaching for your aspirtations as an astronaut or the tooth fairy.

But for me, it was a writer. That’s not entirely true. I wanted to be a singer slash dancer slash environmentalist missionary writer. But, foremost a writer. I filled countless journals with stories and kept a running list of children’s book themes that I would soon pen. And then, during some sad point in childhood you ‘grow up’ and discard your real dreams because somehow they became utterly impossible and someone, or maybe even yourself, told you they were impractical.

Here I become sidetracked from the said endeavor at hand.This is not about me actually trying to become a writer, just an adventure that began when I met one. So here it is. Over the next months I’d like to take you on an adventure with me. It all starts in a coffee shop, which I will describe in the next account, with a man who seemed nothing short of a gadfly. And before I left my unassuming new friend, I left these words scratched on a napkin:

"Lovelier to meet you than you may realize. Thank you."

And here, the story really begins.