Be the Driver of Your Life

I was sitting in class tonight. I am one of two adult, non-traditional students in a class of 24 students. We two older students are generally the only ones who participate in the question/answer model of your average modern classroom. The other students are either text-messaging their friends or staring straight ahead. The professor is clearly frustrated at this lack of responsiveness, but seems a little used to it.

I restrain myself from standing up and saying, "YOU ARE THE DRIVER OF this vehicle called YOUR LIFE."

This is perhaps one of the blessings of getting older, not being afraid to actually answer a professor's question, even if you answer wrong -- and not caring what those around you think if you do get the answer wrong.

That I believe myself the driver of my life goes further than the classroom. Everything in life, even the sweetest friendships, take effort and energy, and the rewards generally equal the effort.

There are many things that are beyond my control; the weather, the clock, traffic, the economy, the good or bad opinion of others (at least this last one I have a small influence over). I realize that bad things sometimes unaccountably happen to good people, but I am not a fatalist. I think it was Emily Dickenson (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) who said, "If you seek beauty, you will find it." I might append her quote with, "And if you seek nothing, you will find it."

Pride and Prejudice, Stubborness and Impatience

There is a scene in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice in which Elizabeth Bennet is playing the piano forté at the great house of Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Elizabeth’s playing is good, but not dazzling. Mr. Darcy is watching her play, and they tease each other for their various faults. Elizabeth accuses Darcy of not dancing enough at a recent ball, to which he replies that he is, “ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers.”

Elizabeth responds: “My fingers do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have only supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practicing.”

This exchange in the story is a pivotal moment, and is central to the entire theme of the book. It has always held me in rapture because Austin has not only created an instant where two characters, seemingly in jest, connect on a profound level, but it gets at something universally human.

For my own part, I try my hand at a great many things. I fail at nearly as many, but I persist in trying. It’s true that I view recipes as mere suggestions. Ask me to assemble something and I’ll start by throwing away the instructions. I dive in to things where others hesitate and measure and second guess themselves. Don’t confuse my behavior with confidence; it’s more a mixture of stubbornness and impatience.

I once heard a saying, where your energy goes, success will follow. I’ve learned that if someone struggles in learning something new, it isn't necessarily some lack of talent, but because he truly doesn’t wish to learn it.

And so it is with Accounting. After two hours of homework this morning, with historic and artistic thoughts of Luca Pacioli, I’m beginning to understand it. Look at me doing spreadsheets.

(after Monet's Water Lilies)

For years, he watched the day change
In drops of sun against water.
He said: to be seen as the light moves,
In bursts of red, greens of summer flaming on the lawn.
In Giverny, where he found his last subject,
He caught on canvas: a river waltzing with the sun.

Light restores what time steals,
But from winter springs the loosening of desire.
Now age and night invade his eyes.
The lilies stand silent in the darkness.
The dark trees sway. Even now he sees
Fires weaving in the particles of water,
Waves of sunlight locked within the leaves.

Rock On With Your Bad Self

It was July 4th, 1976. My family was camping at the Westfield Campsite. It was a particularly hot day, and I was swinging on the swing set. Someone somewhere was playing this on the radio. It has become preserved in my psyche as the epitome of perfect childhood bliss. I swear, every time I hear it I have this uncontrollable urge to find a swing set.

C'mon, I know you want this song as the ringtone on your cell phone too.

Yes, the leisure suits are something, aren't they?

The Art That Steel Built

We went to Pittsburgh Friday to visit the Carnegie Art Museum. If you’ve never been to Pittsburgh; do go, and enter the city from the west via the Ft. Pitt Tunnel under Washington Mountain because when you emerge, splash! You are hit with a dramatic shot of the city. No matter how many times I visit Pittsburgh, I still find this exciting.
My visit to the museum was interesting because when we arrived, on a fine weekday afternoon no less, the museum was packed. With people. There to see art. This is remarkable because not a three hour’s drive away in Columbus, we’re closing the doors on our symphony because of lack of funding and patronage. And here we were in Pittsburgh surrounded by people of every age, class and ethnic heritage coming to see art, which I thought was dead. It baffles the mind.
I’ll tell you about the Carnegie Museums this week, but first I’d like to tell you a bit about the man who is surrounded by so much myth. Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835 to a working-class family in Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1848, the family left Scotland for America where his father hoped to find work as a weaver, but never succeeded. Andrew took a job in a factory making $1.20 per week, though he later found another job at a steam engine factory making $2.00 per week. The factory manager was so impressed by his penmanship and intelligence that he promoted him to clerk of the factory. At the age of 14 he changed jobs again, this time becoming a messenger earning $20 per month. In 1853, Andrew started working at the Pennsylvania RR telegraph office where he learned the ins and outs of the railroad industry. From the time he was thirteen, until and after his father died in 1855, Andrew was the only breadwinner in the family.
In the following years, he invested in sleeping cars and oil, got drafted in the army, and founded the Keystone Bridge Company. It was when he was thirty-three years old that he outlined for himself a plan to retire at age thirty-five and devote himself to philanthropy and his own education. Though he failed this goal, the powerful urge to bring education to the people had him building libraries throughout the country, one of which sits proudly in downtown Columbus.
If this sounds like a Cinderella story, it is in part because it is. He wasn’t a man without flaws. While he was entirely a self-made man, he paid his employees the low wages typical of the day. I myself will never make a fraction of money Carnegie did; nor did I start working at the age of twelve and I can easily say that I’m not willing to work as hard as he did. His interests in art, nature and education might have compensated for his lack of them as a child. While philanthropy and public works were common for millionaires of the day, Carnegie was not like the suave Harvard-educated William Randolph Hearst who became famous for his hoarding of art from around the world for his own pleasure.
The world we live in today is very different from that of Andrew Carnegie. That Victorian spirit of philanthropy is gone, but witnessing the multitudes of art enthusiasts at the museum has shown me that an appreciation for art and culture is still quite alive. Whether or not they know the names of artists represented in each gallery, one still senses that the visitors think it is important enough to explore.
And whatever my feelings for the Carnegies, Rockafellers and Fricks of the world, the legacies they leave behind are bigger than the men who made them and will last through all time.

Birthday Poem

June surrounds us like a green sea,
The harvest of accumulated
Tasks and errands; of a sprinkler arching
Beads of light over potted plants and mowed lawns,
When nesting birds feed their clamorous young
On worms and bugs caught mid-air.
The daffodil has withered
Beneath the hosta, whose leaves spread
In a victorious gesture like arms embracing summer.

Here, I sit, insatiable,
As passionate as a fast or a prayer,
Forgetting the years as I breathe in
The subtle scent of a summer night,
Mentally marking the moments
To store like snapshots in an album
In this season I hold
Most dear in my heart.

How soon we allow ourselves
To reap and exhaust the rich rewards
Of all our sanguine toil.
We make appointments and arrangements
Spending our innocent future,
Trading past pleasures and duties
For pursuit and desire
Like a tree endlessly blossoming.

June 20th in History

In preparation of my birthday, I looked up the events in history of June 20. I found some interesting tidbits for your to ponder on, and filtered out the rest.

In 451 AD: Germans and Romans beat Atiila the Hun at Catalarinische Fields. This is a good thing.

In 1793: Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin. Another good thing, threatening the slave trade.

In 1837: Queen Victoria at 18 ascends British throne following death of uncle King William IV Ruled for 63 years ending in 1901. A very important symbolic figure of her time. The Victorian era represented the height of the Industrial Revolution, a period of significant social, economic, and technological progress in the United Kingdom. Victoria's reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire; during this period it reached its zenith, becoming the foremost global power of the time.

In 1866: Lord George ESMH Carnarvon born, England, egyptologist, who discovered the gravesite of Tutanchamon, or King Tut.

In 1895: 1st female PhD (science) earned (Caroline Willard Baldwin). Go, Caroline.

In 1945: Anne Murray, Canadian Musician, added to 'cleanse the palette.’

In 1953: Cyndi Lauper, born in Brooklyn, singer. Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

In 1968: Rita Finn, née Rita Turgeon, born in Newport City Hospital. Painter, graphic artist, wanna be poet. Full global impact yet to be known.

Hummingbird Heart

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for hummingbirds, the little jewels of the bird world. There's something fragile about them that I understand in an intangible way.

Every year, I grow pineapple sage and lobelia in hopes of attracting hummingbirds to my back yard. Whenever I see one, I run to get my camera and attempt to take a picture. It shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve never succeeded.

A hummingbird is about the size of a cork from a wine bottle, and its heart the size of a baby's fingernail. Comparing the bird’s weight vs. heart size ratio, they have the largest hearts in the world. When you consider that a hummingbird's heart whirs at 500 beats a minute at rest, and up to 1,200 beats a minute in flight, you wonder if they experience time differently than humans. With exquisite eyesight that gives them an ability to catch tiny insects mid-flight, their experience of a second must be more like a minute to us.

All living creatures have approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. Tortoises spend them very slowly, allowing them to live twice and thrice the years of humans. But hummingbirds spend them faster than any other creature, so they live only two to eight years.

Hummingbirds have metabolisms that I can only compare to the speed of light. Their little bodies, completely lacking fat cells, devour oxygen and calories faster than a jet engine. Ambitious in spite of their size, they live closer to death on a daily basis. They frequently die of heart attack. But when hummingbirds sleep, their heart rate slows to about 36 beats per minute, exhausted by the daily marathon.

So, the next time you fall, exhausted, into bed after a stressful and busy day, think of the frantic life of a hummingbird.

Little Birds

My apologies if I sound like a tacky chain email, but upon turning 40, I’ve realized a few things that have helped me over the years and I thought I’d share. My unsolicited advice on getting on in life:

1. Find something you are passionate about and master it.
2. Learn how to mamba. Or bake bread. Or fly a plane. Or play chess, or play the saxophone, or knit, or paint, or write, or speak French. Keep learning things, and whether you make a living from these things or not, they will be your dear friends throughout life.
3. Do something a little scary every day. Step out of your comfort zone. Paint a room magenta. Introduce yourself to someone you admire. Sing in your car. Apply for a job that’s a little out of your league. Write a screenplay.
4. Keep a few friends who are your friends because they like you, not because they want something from you.
5. Buy a garment you can’t really afford and wear it when you need a little boost. Whether it’s a leather jacket, a killer pair of boots, or a fancy hat – putting it on will change your perspective.
6. Be generous and honest with compliments.
7. Think with your head and feel with your heart, and make decisions accordingly. Had I learned this ten years earlier than I did, I could have saved myself an endless amount of pain.
8. Make friends with people who are better than you are at something or other and learn from them.
9. Look people in the eye when you talk with them.
10. Laugh out loud at least once every day.
    
    And keep these few lines I’ve borrowed from ee cummings in your mind:
    
    may my heart always be open to little
    birds who are the secrets of living
    whatever they sing is better than to know
    and if men should not hear them men are old
    
    may my mind stroll about hungry
    and fearless and thirsty and supple
    and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
    for whenever men are right they are not young