37days

Burn those jeans

“A lot of disappointed people have been left standing on the street corner waiting for the bus marked Perfection.” - Donald Kennedy

Since leaving Freedom High School on Independence Boulevard with its (subtle) school colors of red, white, and blue and its aptly named football team (The Patriots, of course), I’ve carried a certain pair of pants around with me everywhere I’ve gone, like a pet Chihuahua in a diamond collar, a dangly gold charm, a passport, a ball and chain.

They are Levi jeans, at that perfect stage of worn-in-ed-ness, that place where the knees know where to go when you put them on, the pockets reveal a pentimento of your hands, and the bottoms are adequately frayed.

Over the years (decades? really? how did that happen?) they’ve become a symbol, a talisman, a veritable icon of my perfect high school shape, that long and lean and strong teenaged body that ran and hiked and climbed and bicycled everywhere, that simpler shape before thesis defenses, tattered hearts, sexual harassments, dead parents, business suits, big promotions, missed deadlines, inane meetings, working with mean people, being mean myself, dead friends, terrorist attacks, hydraulic systems failing on planes I happened to be riding in at 37,000 feet, and just plain living the over-rated adult life.

These jeans are cosmopolitan, accompanying me to college, to live in Germany, to graduate school, to all my jobs, around the world on a ship, to Washington, DC, and recently back to North Carolina where, ironically, they reside in a closet only 54 miles from where I first wore them in high school. Full circle right round the globe, that denim, those rivets, that distinctive red tag.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to carry them around with me, no. But there they were, everywhere I went, a reminder in denim that I don’t have that body anymore and that I had a Big Goal: get back into those jeans.

Years passed.

I still couldn’t fit into them. I continued to beat myself up when I failed to reach that goal. I joined fitness clubs, worked out with a trainer in DC who nearly killed me (I affectionately called him Thor, though not to his well-toned face), ate only raw foods, drank Master Cleanser Lemonade, joined Weight Watchers, and studied before and after pictures in Shape magazine as if I were consulting the hieroglyphic special edition of Man’s Search for Meaning. But even with all those starts and stops and high expectations and successes, the jeans still hung in my closet, unworn, taunting me.

Roll on the floor

"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." – Alan Kay (American computer scientist and researcher)

My daughter Emma and I watched a show on Animal Planet last Saturday that made me laugh. Then it made me think. And then it made me realize I had laughed because I could identify with the people who made me laugh in the first place. I like it when it happens in that order.

The show is called “Who Gets the Dog?” and it is yet another “reality show,” this one a competition between three sets of people vying to adopt a lucky dog picked from the jaws of death at an animal shelter (or saved at least from the pointer fingers of small children poking them incessantly). The dog in question this week was a Rocky, a black Labrador Pointer mix.

During the show, each set of participants talked earnestly into the camera about why they would be the best parents for Rocky, what kind of home life they would provide, how they don’t mind if Rocky pees all over their imported Persian rugs and chews up their $468 Coach Beekman black briefcase with its front gusseted pocket made of glove-tanned cowhide, what Rocky would mean to them, how Rocky would change their lives forever, how much they loved their last dog that they nonetheless let run loose and were surprised when he got killed by a FedEx truck (my money was not on that group to win), and otherwise waxing poetic about Rocky and their adoration of our four-legged friends.

Dog specialists (people who read doggie “auras,” canine therapists, seers, behaviorists, and others too numerous to mention) rated the competitors who each hosted Rocky overnight, working to accomplish specific challenges during the sleepover—teaching doggie tricks to Rocky, for example.

One group was asked to teach Rocky to howl, another had to teach him to walk backwards. The third couple needed to teach Rocky to “pray,” putting his front paws up on their outstretched arm and “bowing” his head.

That last group provided the humor.

Essentially, they failed. They tried to talk Rocky into praying by showing him what it looks like, one fellow pretending to be a dog, his partner with outstretched arms yelling the word “pray.” Rocky looked bemused, I thought, in that “boy, I wish Spot were here to see this” kind of way, but definitely not inclined to mimic what he saw, seeing no reason to do it and not understanding that they wanted him to in the first place. Finally (and here is where I laughed, a laugh that included the daintiest of snorts), they actually resorted to conversing quite seriously with little Rocky about the presence of a higher being and what prayer is and means. I couldn’t make this up.

Must you be a dog lover to realize that the last strategy won’t work?

Find your saxophone

"Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it." -Joseph Campbell

If you’ve read 37 days before, you might have picked up on my love affair with actor Johnny Depp. Beautiful, talented Johnny. Quixotic, funny, odd, quirky Johnny. Did I mention beautiful? Ooh-la-la.

What can I say? There’s no defending it. I won’t pretend it makes sense, this long-distance obsession from North Carolina to France, this enormous, smothering, consuming disdain for that little fragile wispy twig of a French blonde he keeps taking to awards shows and having children with for some unimaginable reason. Why, I could take her out in the blink of an eye, the bat of a more well-nourished eyelash, were I the least bit inclined toward violence, which - of course - I am not, having attended a Quaker college (whose football team was paradoxically the "Fighting Quakers," but I digress). 

There’s no need to alert the authorities: I don’t really think about Johnny or Stick Girl too awfully much until I hear the name Johnny, watch “Pirates of the Caribbean” again or see previews for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” which starts on July 15^th, not that I’m counting the days or anything.

But imagine now a thinking girl’s Johnny Depp and you’ll approximate my passion for former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Heartened by the fact that his first book of poetry was published when he was in his 40s (hope springs eternal even though I missed my first two deadlines for writing the great American novel—in 1985 and 1995, respectively), I was introduced to him by candlelight at an outdoor dining table under a tin roof pelted by furious torrents, the remnants of one of those last hurricanes (scary making), by my friend Gay who, in order to be heard above the rain, had to yell-read Billy’s most fantastic love poem, its verses certainly a rich cousin to Tina Turner’s brilliant “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” in its approach, and all in a beautiful Southern accent under the influence of fine wine and food beautifully prepared by our friend Rosemary, a woman who can make cooking grits look like an exquisite love affair, a sensual, slow, hot tango of hominy and butter.

Catalog your debris

“What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood? – Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

My husband has long regaled me with stories of extreme accumulation, some poetic, some poignant, some pandemic. A rare book and map seller, John is often called to appraise the eclectic ephemera of people who are dead, alive, or on that ice-covered slope between the two, scanning papers and objects for their intrinsic meaning, their historical significance, their monetary worth.

Entering people’s lives that way, he sometimes has to bushwhack through their houses, navigating pathways seemingly created by machetes through solid debris, making his way gingerly (a friend was crushed just this way) through riotous piles of newspapers stacked shoulder high and winding like a corn maze on Halloween, but mustier.

Such was the home of a still-living physicist whose wife John didn’t notice until leaving. Evidently tucked amidst dried husks of papers and books watching a muffled TV; John saw only a tiny upraised hand as he left. “‘Bye,” she said quietly from far away.

Or a teacher’s house so full that entering required scaling a ladder to the second floor window, every ground floor door having been stacked shut with piles.

Then there was the cabdriver forced to live in his taxi because his house was stacked to the brim; his car soon made too full to pick up customers any longer, an infinite regress of possessions, prized shards of broken glass and porcelain figuring prominently among them.

And the man with 24,000 unopened CDs in pristine banker's boxes forming a perfectly alphabetized cube of potential music that filled the spare bedroom of the extra apartment he bought to house his objects. (Why didn’t he play the CDs? He was waiting to buy the perfect CD player.)

Suddenly my collections of blue metal Nivea tins in foreign languages, tiny office products, favorite pencils from grade school sharpened to within an inch of their lives, and those composition books with satisfying A4 paper from around the world don’t look so foreboding.

I have become enamored of what I call the “poetics of accumulation.”

Know the point of your life

“Sheridan's gifts as a teacher were as rare as the purity of his passion. Wherein did these gifts lie? In his brilliance? Yes. In his mastery of his subject? Of course. In his capacity for lucid, concrete, and vivid explanation? Again, yes. But there is another factor, one whose roots lie in magic or the supernatural. Sheridan had charm.” --Jonathan Malino, Eulogy for Sheridan Simon, 11 April 1994

This week – today, actually – marks the eleventh anniversary of a death, a death far too young and far too fast and far too unfair. To keep him alive, I want you to meet a most special human being, an extraordinary mind, a brilliant writer, one of the very funniest people I’ve ever met, and a most amazing teacher. A man with definite charm.

His name is Sheridan Simon. He often had a surprised look on his face because he was always fascinated. This is unabashedly a tribute to him, but I think you’ll find some wisdom in his story, too.

Sheridan was only 46 when he died, a lifetime of living left undone, unsaid, untaught, unbreathed, just fiercely unlived. He was an astrophysicist, my extraordinary professor at Guilford College, and later - I’m privileged to say - my friend.

Sheridan showed by example the very best in balancing fun and work, friendship and respect, flexibility and standards. I spent many outrageous evenings eating pizza at Huck’s across from campus with Sheridan and my classmates, knowing full well that when our lab reports were due the next day, they were due at the beginning of class and not a minute later, regardless of our dinnertime camaraderie. The door to the physics department was locked the moment lab began, and those hapless souls who were late would desperately try to shove their reports under the door, to no avail (and to the almost immeasurable and admittedly depraved delight of those of us already in the room). There was no negotiation—you received an “F” for that lab if not there on time.

I stayed up all night to write my first physics lab report, paralyzed by the prospect of living up to his standards, and finally crafting a play in three acts to demonstrate the findings of my computer-simulated rocket launch. The main characters were a religion major who had just read Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” and an English major who thought she had written Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” It appealed to Sheridan’s sense of fun and encyclopedic knowledge of the liberal arts, as evidenced by his detailed remarks in the margins, replete with quotes from movies like “On the Waterfront,” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” It was my first introduction to the full measure of his wickedly irreverent sense of humor, and a mutual admiration society was born.

Search for beneficial surprise

Every summer, I escape to the beautiful countryside outside Portland, Oregon, to teach for a few weeks at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. It’s a fantastic learning space, with people from all over the world. This summer, I’ll teach two 5-day courses: one from July 25-29 on “Building Effective Diverse Teams in Organizations” with my friend, colleague, and co-author, Anita Rowe, and a new course from August 1-5 on “Imaginative Facilitation East and West: accessing group wisdom for inspired results” with my friend and colleague Kichom Hayashi from Tokyo. Come join us as we go on a beneficial search for surprise at “culture camp.”

 

Get off the ship

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."  -Eleanor Roosevelt

In the fall of 1988, I sailed around the world. Actually, that sounds more romantic and rugged than it was. It's not as if I was hoisting the jib and jibing the boom, as sailors are wont to do (though we did live through a typhoon and nearly capsize, worthy of a few tall sailor tales.)

I was working on the University of Pittsburgh's (Pennsylvania, USA) Semester at Sea program, traveling on a large ship that circumnavigated the globe in 4 months. We stopped in 10 amazing ports along the way--from Kobe and Split to Istanbul and Cadiz - and beyond. The students' experiences in port were core to their educational program--we arranged in-country programs to complement their classroom studies aboard the S.S. Universe.

A month into the voyage, I realized there was one student who never got off the ship. Lest we leave a coed in Odessa or Taipei, we carefully tracked students' passports and it was clear that one young woman had never set foot in any of the ports we had visited thus far.

When we docked in Penang, Malaysia, I sought her out and we sat on the promenade deck near the pool. After watching a while as workers brought aboard provisions, I asked her about staying on the ship all the time. She finally admitted that she didn't leave the ship because she was afraid she would get lost. It was an answer I wasn't prepared for.

I had to think for a while before I could respond. Her fear seemed so irrational to me, but of course it was real and rational to her, since it was literally prescribing the confines of her world. "hmmm...," I finally said. "How old are you?" She was 20.

We sat for a few minutes longer. "And what do you think the life expectancy is for women in the U.S. these days?, I asked. "I guess it's around 80," she replied.

"Do you think you'll stay lost for 60 years?'" I quietly asked. We made a pact to get lost together in our next port, which was Madras, India.

I've thought a lot about that since 1988. How much do we hold back on life because of fear--whether rational or irrational? What do we have to gain by getting lost every once in a while? What are we allowing to prescribe the limits of our world? What ship are we staying on?

Outward Bound, a wilderness education program, is headquartered in my hometown in North Carolina. As local high school students, my friends and I participated in their programs free of charge. One trip provided the learning of a lifetime.

Hiking from Table Rock to Mt. Mitchell through the Linville Gorge was supposed to take five days. It took seven. There were 23 of us -- 18 students, two teachers and three guides.  Oue guides provided the training to cross a river, read a map, and find the North Star. They provided the tools to get us to Mt. Mitchell. After that "book learning," we teenagers were in charge. Completely.

Being shown how to read a map and actually reading one are two very different things. It was on the third day that we made the wrong decision, leading us 12 miles out of our way. Our guides did nothing to save us from making the mistake; instead, they hiked those extra 12 miles along with us. The mistake was the learning, as it turns out.

Physicist Hermann von Helmholtz was a great teacher and brilliant experimenter. He likened knowledge to an alpine climb--when you climb a mountain, you don't go straight from the bottom to the top, you zigzag, you go around and through, eventually getting to the top where you can then see both the top and bottom and the straight line between them. When you're at the top, you can show others what Helmholtz called the "royal road." But being shown the royal road isn't learning, it's only the explanation, just as being taught to read a map isn't the same as reading one.

The learning process is far less exact than the royal road. And it is that winding, twisty trail where learning gets done. You make a false start; you backtrack, and then go ahead. Sometimes you go 12 miles out of your way. And sometimes getting lost is the learning. To do any of that, you have to first leave the ship.

37 days: do it now challenge

Many discoveries were accidental, and came from being lost: the Big Bang, post-it notes, Jovian Moons, even GPS systems that help us get found--they were all accidental discoveries. This week, ask yourself what ship you're staying on and what you might be losing out on by not venturing out. One day this week, be an accidental explorer: get lost, take a wrong turn, veer off the path you always take, read a magazine you would not otherwise read, connect with someone you perceive to be quite different from yourself. Take the trail rather than just read about the royal road. Get off the ship.

"Don't be afraid to be out on a limb. That's where the fruit is." -H. Jackson Browne

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." -Louisa May Alcott