We're All in the Same (Striving) Gang

Pondering what makes a life meaningful, useful, profitable I come to the conclusion that a lot of us are searching for more and as we watch the market praise and benefit absolute crap over and over again, we wonder if we'll ever be able to make a living trying to life ourselves out of the crap.

I'm speaking of those of us who are wishing for an intelligent community that could publish something meaningful to all of us. Why don't we have the market power? Are we all too cheap to invest in the things we hold dear and keep carping about there being a lack of in American culture?

It would be nice to care more about community and culture and the quality of life -- internally than a paycheck. I for one am usually afraid of being poor again. I want a comfortable life, but not at the expense of missing out on life.

I want to write about people doing great things, specifically women, and I think I can find a place that will want to pay me to do that. But right now that isn't happening. I'm trying to narrow things down, find my avenues to something that can be profitable and rewarding. I want to honor craft and others and history and respect humanity at the same time. But you know what is tiring me most? People telling me it can't be done. I believe it can. And I feel like I can at least try on a small scale for some success at this.

I am not alone in this. A lot of people want this. And I think I've long known that satisfaction and happiness for me lie in the striving itself, not the profit you make from it. It is an emotional profit, the satisfaction of a useful life, that you are doing something meaningful -- at least to yourself. It think that's really all I want. And I can do that in many ways. I just want to make sure I don't starve in the process, or that others don't.

The idea that we're all in this together give me hope and strength. I'm one of those people who believes in the power of positive thought, the power of the heart, and the fact that if we think these things together they can change the world, because that's energy, and that's what every fiber of our being is made of. Energy. Thought energy. Heart energy.

And some blood, sweat and tears, as the phrase goes. I've come to the conclusion that you get dragged through no matter what you choose to do with yourself -- why not make it something meaningful? Life will always have hard moments. I risk being Pollyanna about things, but I have heard stories of people who keep believing through droughts of mind and heart, and come out of it with exactly what they envisioned. If we can display that patience, maybe it'll come.

Affairs that are public: Like keeping women healthy and alive and literate

I just corresponded with my zupafantastic friend Dave (see I Just Wanna Be a Tugboat Captain) about ladies in the Peace Corps. He spent time in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and started a public health clinic down there. He's a great source of inspiration, and a pretty amazing friend. You should look at his blog and become as smitten with him as everyone who meets him in the flesh is.

I have so much brewing in my head right now--particularly about being a useful human being. My job is starting to provide an opportunity for me to do that, if I work it the right way. We have a great section of the company called Public Affairs, and they work on a few promotions a year, including one called End Violence Against Women, then there's one on Breast Cancer Awareness, Every Woman Counts (that's getting women to vote--this year it's going to be awesome!). So here I think I'll be able to write and do the good that I hope to do, and hopefully, it can lead to other things too.

In the meantime, I'm making my way across cyberia and finding organizations that shine a light inside and NEED PRESS and I think I should be one to provide it. This is one of the most amazing groups: Women Without Borders, they're all about ending violence against women too.

God, my insides feel like a Bob Dylan song: I feel reborn with purpose, and think I am figuring out that I have a tool that will get me closer to my goals.

Vietnamese

One thing I LOOOOOOOVVVEEE about Jersey City is the food. Donna and I had this amazing beef we cooked at our table and wrapped in rice paper. This is the sauce I would love to bathe in.

I am boring. I am growing up.

Photo: Grand Cayman, Xmas 2006, on a boat with Donna's dad. It was beautiful.

Wormholes abound in the blogosphere, and I fell into one in October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when I started writing a blog for my job. Just facts and news and events and stuff. Weird part is, I was most inspired to do it because my aunt recently went through a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, but I didn't even tell her about it. She had complications with the surgery and was really depressed, and I felt like it would be weirdly opportunistic to start talking about how I'm doing this blog and she was my inspiration when I haven't even spoken with her in ages. I didn't want to be self-promoting, self-congratulatory, if that makes any sense at all. I just wanted to tell her I loved her and that I was thinking of her. This is when you feel like you could do so much more in your life. Go the extra mile. Stop thinking about yourself and how you can improve your life, but how you can be useful somehow to humanity.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe it was reading all those stories of people fighting this awful, mysterious thing that nobody can get rid of. I've gone back and forth in my life between being numb and being as "sensitive as an eye" (a line from a Margaret Atwood poem that I first read as a freshman in college and has never left me). No surprise that dumb and numb are almost the same word. You feel dumb, stunned by the world, when you encounter awful things. And of course, I'm like most New Yorkers and in therapy and exploring my numbness and trying to learn how to surf the swells of heightened sensitivity and the blackouts of numbness like so many other creative, feeling people.

Excuse me if I feel a tad confessional today.

In the time that I have been on hiatus on this blog, I've turned 35. It's a milestone. It's a marker. One that is making me ask, yet again, but with more intensity: What are you doing with your life?

Well, for one thing: I'm learning how to deal with security.

For those who don't know: I didn't stay an entire year in one school until 6th grade. And I think from the time I was 5, I didn't see my parents much. I remember a lot of wood paneling and black and white tvs, transistor radios and books, books and more books. No friends, but books, yes. Small Louisiana towns, punctuated by short stints back in Iowa. Plantations and pigs. Humidity and stockyards. Loneliness and family. Kinda weird New Orleans became home; Louisiana was so lonely for me as a kid. It's like I got to start all over when I hit New Orleans, though. New Orleans is like the Vatican: It deserves its own borders. It's like no other place in the world.

You know, my background isn't that strange. It's not like I grew up on the streets or had a heroin addiction at the age of 10. But it was still pretty hard to grapple with. Sometimes I'm shocked I don't believe unicorns exist. Hmmm...or do I? I've met a few unicorns in my life. You know the Margaret Cho bit where she talks about meeting a good-looking, nice, straight, available guy and asks him "Are you a unicorn?" I've been lucky enough to meet some unicorns in my time. But they're different: they're magical humans whose existence gives me hope.

35 years old. Means it's time to grow into myself. I was such an old kid. And after I hit college, I kind of subconsciously decided to get that youth back. Actually, it happened after I graduated and my first major relationship disintegrated. I did a typical thing: fell in love with the bottle, and all the accompanying drugs and late nights. OK, bad-girl youth covered. Now, meaningful life. Time to pursue that. Time to do the "dream following." Maybe I need to buy a dream catcher. Ha.

Well, this is probably the most I've ever said about myself on this freaking blog. What's happening? When you turn 35 does the bullshit start to evaporate? Because I feel like I've surrounded myself with a lot of bullshit in the last few years of my life. Try 10. I think it's time to admit I get depressed about my past and live in it for periods that last far too long. Maybe that's the only way to get over it. You know how Christians talk about the times you turn your back on your faith to find it again. Then you know what's out there, you know what life is like without it. You lose your faith to find it again. I feel like I've lost myself several times, but some things are still here. I've returned to writing. I quit it for years. Now I'm writing again. I think that may be the only thing that can truly help me do that growing into a meaningful life I'm talking about. Because that's how I grew up: books, books, journals, diaries. That's me.

When I started writing again, it truly was as if I got back in touch with a really old friend I didn't even know I'd missed. Me. I missed myself. We used to be really good friends. Well, now we're reacquainted. It's not like it's not hard. Movies never show the boring times. Jack Kerouac was an idiot--shambling after people who never yawn or say boring things. No wonder he was an alcoholic. That's not life. I shambled after that too, but you know what, yawning isn't a bad thing. Quiet gives you time to figure things out, to evaluate, to know what's happening. You can't burn, burn into the night your whole freaking life.

I am boring. But sometimes I make some interesting discoveries. That's what I want to share. And even boredom has a rhythm. Breathing has a rhythm, and that NEVER ends until you do. So, the song of life beats on every day of your life. I want to make it my job to hear that song: Song of the yawns and the blood flowing, the breathing, and I hope that it will unveil something to me. In the noticing, I think it will. Start walking, follow feet. At the end of it, I'm bound to find a grown-up.