37days

She had me at "cow town"

Oh, my.

I love to shop on Etsy. Real artists making art. I've made a conscious commitment to buy handmade.

My dream is to create a small shop at 37day.net that will include only handmade objects that relate to my blog and book (did I mention I've written a book?), so in service to that vision, I've been exploring Etsy to find artists whose work I love, then asking if they are interested in creating 37days art. (Are you interested? Please provide a link to your work in the comments!)

One day last week, I found beautiful tiles with words on them. My very favorite color. I wrote to ask.

Rachel wrote back. Turns out, that the very day I wrote to her was Day 37 of a big life change. She was struck by the synchronicity. So was I. Said she'd love to create some prototypes of tiles with the six practices for intentional living that are outlined in LIFE IS A VERB.

When she sent the photos of them, I burst into tears.

There is something about seeing art made from your words that defies description. I felt that way, too, when all the amazing art flowed in from readers around the world to illustrate the book.

I loved the tiles. Wanted to tile my kitchen so I'd see the six practices every morning when I wake up and stumble in there to make coffee. Wanted to tile my shower so I could meditate on them in the steam. Wanted to create a path of them in my garden. Wanted to carry them all in my handbag so when people irritate me as they are wont to do sometimes AND ESPECIALLY THIS WEEK FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON IS THERE A PLANET IN RETROGRADE?, I could reach in and feel the outline of the words and calm myself right down. I sent the photographs to Mr Brilliant:

"It must feel pretty good seeing your words incised in something (that isn't a tombstone). AND HEY:  speaking of tombstones, looks like she lives in the city where Oliver Loving is buried--remembered, Goodnight-Loving Trail? It was the promise Charlie G made to Oliver to carry his rotting corpse back to TX that inspired old Larry to write Lonesome Dove. So Oliver's trail ended there--she could probably drive there in 15 minutes and put a pebble on his grave if she was so inclined. Your potter lives a few miles from where the trail began for one of your favorite books. Pretty poetic. You should share with her--its a good story."

I think Larry McMurtry's novel, Lonesome Dove, is a Great American Novel. In fact, Mr Brilliant is working on a book about the series of McMurtry novels that are connected to Lonesome Dove. That's how much we like it.

I sent his story to the potter. "Yes!" she wrote back. "We DO live near where Charlie Goodnight is buried - at the Greenwood Cemetery - AND we live off of Greenwood Road. AND Lonesome Dove is one of OUR favorite books too - at LEAST once a year, we get out our Lonesome Dove CD set and watch the entire thing yet again.  We know it by heart. AND -  MY husband's name is Larry.  SO many parallels.  It is Synchronicity and  Serendipity."

She continued: "When I first read the book, Lonesome Dove, I was trail riding about once a month, living in Austin, and I grieved for an entire month when I finished it.  For Gus, AND for the book itself, that it was over.  I was so profoundly moved by that story and completely taken and emotionally involved with all of the  very colorful characters - of course, especially Gus McCrae.  And now I live here - at least 20 years later."

Synchronicity and Serendipity. Her beautiful Life is a Verb tiles will be available for sale (either individually or in a set of 6) soon in the 37 days shop. Do you like them as much as I do?

Unplug the phone

The first principal of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating. - Cesar Chavez

I was in my early 20s, in graduate school studying literature (mainly American) and art history (mainly the figure of the artist in fiction). There’s a huge employment market for people who have studied the figure of the artist in fiction, of course. My thesis was entitled “The Solids of Uccello: Near Recognitions of Reality in William Gaddis’ The Recognitions." It was a heady time, indeed. I was studying in an English Department then ranked first in the nation, in a school known as Mr Jefferson’s University that until 1970, just twelve years before, had been an all-male bastion.

The competition was fierce in the English department, though I didn’t realize just how fierce for quite some time. I thought it was all about the love of literature—and it was, in large part, but with an undercurrent of beating the other M.A. students for the few, precious slots in the Ph.D. program. It was particularly competitive if you happened to be a woman (though I didn’t know that either), because many longtime professors there still weren’t sure if going co-ed had been such a good idea after all.

There was only one tenured female professor in the department who, in a memorable conversation, told me that she had suffered deeply to get there and her intention was not to help other women by making it easier for them, but to ensure that every other woman suffered as much as she did so they would understand and appreciate the journey.

Evidently you cannot help without torturing the ones who follow you, I thought. I, myself, would rather sweep a path for them, show them the landscape, be—as Sun Tzu says in The Art of War--a local guide.

Friends like these you do not need, I thought as I sat across from this woman. “Is this what Walker Percy had in mind when he wrote about ‘handing one another along?’ I asked sweetly. Having studied his work in her class, it was a fully appropriate question, I thought. She was less amused.

One American literature professor stood out for me—I took many classes with him during my time at Mr Jefferson’s University—smart, demanding, a man who knew how to teach—in an institution that, frankly, put more emphasis on research and publishing than teaching. But this professor was a shining light, sure to get tenure. I loved his classes—funny, hard, smart. I would use the word “brilliant,” but you and I both know that word is taken.

I did well there, made all As my first year, and was named a DuPont Scholar that January. I noticed a difference in how the old guard treated me afterwards, as if I had emerged from the swamp of first year to become a Real Possibility for the Ph.D. program. It was a culture built on achievement and a department in which—quite literally—a “B” was equal to a “D” and even an “A-“ was nothing to write home about.

Those were heady days. My best friend there, Ken, used to crack me up with his Marlon Brando “On the Waterfront” impersonation: “I could-a been a critical theorist,” he would wail as we worked on papers that very nearly sucked all the life out of Melville and Eliot and Yeats.

My biggest learning there began on the evening of February 28, 1983, the night of the last M*A*S*H episode. I lived in Tucker Dorm at the time and those of us in the dorm had planned a party in the basement to watch the two-hour finale together.

Just as the episode started, my roommate ran down the stairs.

“Patti, your professor is on the phone.”

Women speak truth - Eve Ensler

Several years ago, I heard Eve Ensler was coming to Charlotte, North Carolina, just a few hours’ drive from here, to perform her new play, “The Good Body.” Ensler’s internationally acclaimed work, “The Vagina Monologues,” continues to be performed around the world, and her V-Day organization is a force to be reckoned with, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, bringing women’s bodies—and the rest of us—into focus.

With as many body issues as the next person, I needed to go see what “The Good Body” had to say to me. New to Asheville, I didn’t yet have a close group of women friends to dip into for company, so I emailed those women here whose email addresses I had—perhaps we had met at a potluck or a class or a baby shower—and invited anyone who was interested to go to Charlotte with me, see the show, spend the night—a road trip. Lots of women responded, three could actually go, and off we went. One was a neighbor I knew, but not well yet, and the other two were women I didn’t know, but had met briefly. We got to know each other as we drove, ate, listened, and talked.

We ate dinner at a restaurant in Charlotte that knows what it’s doing—the best service I think I’ve ever received. We walked from there to the theatre, where we saw Eve Ensler herself perform. A small theatre. We were seated, much to my delight, in none other than Row V.

Consider yourself unstoppable

I have to say that ranting feels good. Ranting with intention feels even better.

It's a step beyond Grumpy Patti, which is the nickname my business partner, David, has recently given me. "Grumpy Patti is good," he'll say, smiling, after I've said my truth in a meeting with a client, not the Euphemistic Blither-Blather Truth to Get More Work, but The Truth Plain and Simple, the Truth that asks the question, "what is your intention in doing this work?"

And so, my recent Grumpy Patti rant has resulted in a lot of emails that will no doubt power some additional writing in the coming weeks. One reader in particular, journalist Lee Hancock, sent me two things I must share. Thanks, Lee.

"Stop thinking this is all there is. Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral. Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel. Realize that this is the perfect moment to change the energy of the world, to step right up and crank your personal volume; right when it all seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and bilious... there's your opening.

Remember magic! And, finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a seemingly small but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift, the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable."  -Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle columnist

Welcome to 37days...

At some point in our lives, we’ll all just have thirty-seven days to live. Maybe that day is today. Maybe not.

There are new, interesting eyes (and, presumably, whole faces) peeking into 37days recently—many as a result of this site being newly noted as a TypePad Featured Blog.

Thanks, TypePad! What a wonderful surprise and honor...

Welcome. Look around. Poke into the archives. I hope you’ll find something of interest and, perhaps, of meaning to you and your life. Why 37days? That answer can be found here.

Arriving to a blog in progress is sometimes like entering a parlor, late, after everyone else has already arrived and is deep in a heated discussion, a conversation too hot for them to pause and catch you up, just as Kenneth Burke imagined in his gorgeous metaphor of an unending conversation. “If fact,” he writes, “the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar… However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”

A is for advocate

We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written. –Robert Gould Shaw, abolitionist

In 2008, I will be a better advocate for those who need—and want—my advocacy.

Long ago on a faraway planet, I once worked in an organization where I sat through a management meeting every Monday. Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell no longer scares me. Been there. No, actually, it wasn’t that bad. I learned a lot. But sometimes…

One memorable Monday morning, the debate centered on what kinds of notices employees could—and, more importantly, COULD NOT—put on the employee bulletin board in the break room. Nothing sparks a good week at work like legislating the behavior of people you presumably trust enough to represent your organization on CNN to the entire universe, to spend the organization’s money by the thousands, and to write your news releases. Just can't trust 'em with that employee bulletin board, no-sirree-bob.

The debate centered on the appearance of a notice about a gay-friendly picnic that was being held the next month. Up to this point, all had been right with the world, what with all the notices for yard sales and pet sitters and used bikes, until the “gay” word appeared. Add “picnic” and presumably the world as we know it is ending.

I listened incredulously as my peers debated for more than an hour whether this, in fact, was an appropriate use of the employee bulletin board. Hmmm…let’s see. An employee put the notice on the employee bulletin board about something that obviously meant a great deal to the employee. I’m not sure how many more times we can use the word employee in that equation.

One vice president in particular was agitated by the very idea. The debate raged on: “What if?” and “What if?” and “What if?” as I thought to myself, “Man, what if I get hit by a bus on the way home. I’m gonna be really pissed that I spent my last two hours on earth like this.” “What if a picnic is just a picnic,” I thought, continuing my internal reverie. “And what if gay people are as fully human as you are?” I screamed inside my head.

“What if this is just a way to recruit people to be gay?” I heard him say loudly and angrily. “I guess if the KKK wanted to put up a recruitment poster or a notice for a march, we’d let them, too!”

I fell out of my chair. My eyeballs popped out of their sockets. I lunged for his throat.

B is for "be FOR something"

There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics. -Richard Livingstone

In 2008, I won’t be against something if I can’t offer something to be for instead.

It is so very easy to criticize. It comes naturally, quickly. “What a lousy conference,” we might say. It is harder to solve, change, make better, offer constructive suggestions. We don’t take the time to fill out the conference evaluation in the kind of detail that would offer suggestions for the next time around; we’d rather just complain. It's easier! More fun!

I worked for years for a man who expected I would tell him the real truth. When others kissed up to him, he’d more often than not appear at my office door and say, “well, what did you really think.” And I would tell him.

One day, he appeared in my office door to ask that question, but he started by jokingly saying, “well, I’ve come to ask our office cynic a question…”

Hmm.

I didn’t see myself as the office cynic, but I knew in an instant from the sharp pain I felt at his words that it was, in fact, true. Sure, I was creating more than I was complaining, but I did fall on the critical side of the continuum. I had to acknowledge that while I knew why I was being intellectually critical (that is, critical of ideas and not people, though, well, what the hell, I did plenty of that too)—to move the organization to greater heights—I began to realize that looking deeper and holding us all to a higher standard often sounded negative. I would sit in endless meetings that felt mindless and center-less and make pronouncements at the end, sounding like the Lord of Doom. I was right sometimes, but even so, I often only made pronouncements and not suggestions. I needed to be for something, and not just against things.

H is for human rights

Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word ‘human.’ –Suzanne LaFollette

In 2008, I will fight for the rights of human beings I see being dismissed and excluded and not listened to. And killed for who they are.

And I will remember that H is for human rights. Not white, middle upper class, straight, fine brick home rights, but human rights.

Not different-but-enough-like-me-that-I-feel-comfortable rights, but human rights.

Not multicolored-but-white-inside rights, but human rights.

I will believe in equality, not just with my superiors—which is easy—but with those people I judge as inferior to me. I will believe in equality, not just with people who agree with me--which is easy--but with people who don't agree with me--which is more difficult.

I will remember that it takes action to ensure the human rights of others, not weariness, and not just talk. That it takes being for something, and not just being against something.

And I will remember that being neutral isn’t. As Paulo Freire reminds us, “Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."

I was delighted to hear a college professor of mine, Jerry Caris Godard, speak this past Sunday. What a joy to reconnect after these many years out of school, to come to know former professors as adults, each of us grey-haired now. His topic was William Blake; he offered ten “angles of vision” into his “passionate entanglement” with Blake. It was number eight, among others, that caught my eye: “As my lifelong openness to others is amplified, I recognize (more explicitly than Blake) that ardent advocacy of gender equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to set sexism aside!”

“So too,” he remarked, “with racism.”

It is not enough to want something.

It is not enough to want a portion of something. As Desmond Tutu said, “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”

And it is not enough to look away from what is right in front of us, as Carl Rowan reminds us: “It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.”

Intentions: Let’s start here. Now. Consider yourself part of the solution. Grant specificity and humanity to the Other.

From the last alphabet challenge: H is for horse

Teach fear to heel

“We invent what we love, and what we fear.” – John Irving

A student of mine was murdered this week, on Wednesday.

No, she was actually assassinated as she prayed at a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. The reports are that masked gunmen in black leapt from a van and shot her in the neck, then turned to shoot her husband. Thai police have said they believe the couple was targeted for assassination by the Laotian government under a belief they were working against the communist regime in neighboring Laos.

I had met at lunch the day before with another professor to finalize plans for this student's independent study on global leadership this semester. Thankfully, my colleague called the next morning to tell me of her death so I wouldn’t have to hear it first on the news.

Remember the green book

“Far away is only far away if you don't go there.” -O. Povo

When my friend Gay tells a story, it comes out like a hot knife through rich butter—all soft, fluid, full, with a drawl that makes you want to move to Mississippi and listen to a big bearded man in a scratchy green sweater read Faulkner out loud to you in a hot room where dust motes float heavy in the air when the faded velvet curtains dare to part ever so slightly against the hot white day.

That’s just to say that the woman can tell a story.

And here’s a childhood remembering of hers that left an image I won’t soon forget.