A Christmas Carol

Ho Ho Ho...

Okay, screw it. I'll tell it to you straight: I hate have a fairly negative history with Christmas.

From being the adorable 2-year-old given a tiny-sized softball mitt and squishy ball, only to burst into tears and exclaim, "I don't even know what it is!" to the young adult dressing up as a goth for a practical joke/spiteful statement for my dad's side of the family (in particular my grandmother), I've often been a bit of a brat on this particular day. Every year I am a huge grinch... but I realize that being a spoilsport isn't much fun. So I've been working on my attitude and those reflex reactions that come out of nowhere to make the social constructs of Christmas more fun for myself and those around me.

I feel like putting some of this together as a way to explain why I probably will never have a collection of Christmas music or your typical giddiness as the day approaches.

Christmas Past:

Not to complain (as I realize that my attitude is mostly my reaction to situations, not from any particular person or cause), but rather to explain I'll ask the question: "Where did all of this grinching come from?"
After reflection I've decided it probably something to do with the pressure of being one of the oldest kids out of both sides of my family, the first girl (on both sides), and the total attention of waaay to many adults after being dragged around without a nap for days on end. While I've been an attention whore my whole life, something about those preliminary years definitely affected me:

As I grew up, I (young, sugar-charged, and sleep deprived) was asked to babysit and organize my younger, equally sugar-charged, sleep-deprived cousins into family Christmas pageants every year upon our arrival at grandma's, which my perfectionist nature made into much more traumatic experiences than necessary. Add in many many years worth of this constant self-inflicted pressure, my grandmother's eternal need to create drama out of nowhere, complicated relationships between my parents and other relatives, one year's explosive expletive-filled expulsion from the Hughes-family festivities, and a growing sarcastic nature and this is what you get:
Christmas Present:

A smile on my face? Me, wearing a red Christmas sweater dress? Is this really even possible?
Evidently it is. If...

I just do all my shopping online a few weeks ahead except for a few projects I can knit up on planes and a couple of little things to pick up in the last week. And then I avoid all Christmas things, even on the road where decorations and constant music are ubiquitous. Perhaps I get sick with an intense cold, and spend a couple of days on the couch, knitting and avoiding food prep (especially the exhausting cookie making). Then, on Christmas Eve, I regain my strength, finish my shopping, wrap everything, and help with the prep for dinner. Christmas day, I manage to nap a bit, work on the set up for the second party in two days, and focus on the constant clean-up and moving along of the festivities while my house is besieged by 20 other people. I make sure that the white elephant gift exchange has written rules and take control so that it moves along as quickly as possible, making it possible for everyone to leave by 9:30pm. Then I give up and escape at around 10:30pm, when a few of my cousins start clunking out "heart and soul" on the piano over, and over, and over... directly above my bedroom, and then continue for another hour.If I can still have a smile on my face after all that... I can manage Christmas.

Christmas Future:

I can remember one time in my 25 Christmases where I understood the Christmas spirit and enjoyed my family and everything about the holiday. That was the year where my immediate family was traveling in the Southwest--touring about about in an RV from Phoenix to Santa Fe (where we spent Christmas itself) and onwards to Monument Valley, Chaco Canyon, and the Grand Canyon.

So my ideal Chirstmas wish is to eventually re-create this holiday escape... I'd love to spend the holiday in a snowy place like New England, or in a German or French town with Christmas markets, somewhere warm for a tropical Christmas in sundresses, or even just escaping to a cabin by the Washington Coast or in the San Jauns. Somewhere new every other year... away from all of the traditions that make me feel the triggers of the past.But we always have to have a Big Freakin Tree.

Re-routing and Overloading My Way Through Chicago

Instead of flying on a painfully long flight home on Friday night from Burlington, VT I had planned on an easy direct to Chicago to spend the weekend with Krista and CJ. Oh, if only that had been what had actually happened.

The two days out on the road before this weekend were pretty good. Sadly, I gave up my free day on Veterans Day up to fly trans-con to Manchester, NH. In Manchester, I sat in on a seminar for the first time. I was out with Ken Vieth, who is an amazing artist and art teacher. Unfortunately I was really not feeling creative for whatever reason and what I created that day during the hands on part of the seminar was disappointing. It was a great project though, and I intend to attempt the art on my own time at some point this coming week. We had a great talk on the drive to Burlington, VT as we drove towards a sparklingly beautiful sunset. He was the kind of guy who’s had amazing life experiences that he’s willing to talk about at length, but he also is a question asker and was interested in what stories I had to share as well. I really appreciated talking about my own issues with figuring out what my life’s passions are and what direction to go in after this BER year.

Burlington is on my list of favorite places in the country. I got him to join me out for dinner on Church Street, a fun pedestrian area of town that also has a Ben & Jerry’s store (pumpkin cheesecake ice cream anyone?!) and we wandered a bit just enjoying the college atmosphere and New England architecture. After the seminar the next day, we had a while before our flights so we went down and parked downtown and walked to Lake Champlain, which was staggeringly beautiful with mist and late-afternoon sunlight streaming across it. After one more scoop of Ben & Jerry’s we headed off to the airport, where we were greeted by the most glaringly awful flashing screens I’ve seen in a while.

Turned out, there was the remnants of a hurricane sitting over all of the major east coast hub airports. Ken’s flight to Newark was outright cancelled while my connection flight through Philly was delayed 6 hours. By working my PM magic and working with a brilliant US Airways ticket counter agent (she is getting a commendation letter from me, she was THAT great in the crisis!). Ken and I both flew on a US Air flight to LGA, I got him a car to get to Newark while I changed terminals and got on an American Airlines flight to Chicago, arriving barely half an hour late. Considering the situation was pretty shitty overall, the feeling I got after managing the whole thing seamlessly was amazing. This job has really given me skills that are real world applicable. If anyone wants to know exactly what to say to a ticket counter agent in this kind of situation, call me. :) Also, I was capable of getting my presenter from one airport to another, while getting myself from one terminal of a huge airport to the other terminal, through the correct security line, and still have a front of the plane aisle seat.

When I got on my American flight to ORD, I was pretty excited to actually be making it to my destination, but definitely planning on downing a glass of wine. When my seatmate sat down next to me though, I realized the universe was making it up to me for the previous stress of my day. The cut,e 24 year old NYC equities trader next to me who has family in Seattle was not only fun to talk to, but also all about proving himself to the older, better traveled, attractive female on his right. After he started name dropping celebrities I knew I was about to get my drinks paid for. And that is another thing this job has taught me: let them pay, even if they make fun of you for knitting. That way I get to keep my per-diem for exciting hotel stays in places like Nashville and Miami.

When I arrived in Chicago, Krista and CJ came and picked me up for a chill weekend in Chicago. I’ve already done all of the touristy stuff, so I just wanted to see their new neighborhood and maybe go thrifting. And did we! CJ is the most amazing chef ever... she whipped me up a salad to make up for the fact that I’d barely had time for a luna bar for dinner and then the next morning, after a trip to the most amazing ukrainian deli/grocery store, we had a scramble/fry that was potentially the best thing I’ve had in weeks (excepting my mom’s squash soup... *hint hint*). She also figured out the proper name of the coffee drink I wanted--a coranado or a wet macchiato... damn it I wan to be back in a place that understands “flat white.” Krista took me for a terrifying yet exhilarating scooter ride around the neighborhood and showed me her super-secrect favorite gift shop which was definitely worthy of being favorited.

Then we went to the thrift store. I am not allowed to disclose the actual location of this amazing treasure trove (as if I could find it myself if I tried), but Oh Damn. Thank god I threw a space bag in my suitcase to crunch down some of the amazingness I purchased. I got an extra pair of black flats (Nine West and brand new), a knock-off yet adorable Prada bag (which I call affectionately Frada), tons of sweaters and tops, and an American Apparel skirt, nevermind the already squished contents of my suitcase. We had a blast, and then to top it off, we went to possibly the world’s largest whole foods to grab dinner and to gawk at the rich Lincoln Center folks. People actually get glasses of wine and drink as they shop. How yuppie-fabulous can you get?

Now I am in the Pittiest of Burghs, about to meet an old friend for dinner before starting a week out with one of my favorite presenters from last year. It makes up for the fact that I’m headed to Akron and Detroit this week as well.

Hope and Its Burden

Okay, Vegas stories to come for all you patient chickadees, but there's other things I'd like to say first about the inauguration, if you'll allow me a rather circuitous route to it...

Life has a way of changing what I think of it constantly, especially regarding its purpose. As a child, I can remember being very moment-to-moment about my goals in life. My purpose was always some tangible thing or translatable abstraction--from being a scientist and curing cancer to having a life philosophy of tolerance, it was all very clearly defined, straightforward, and completely rationalized. At some point in my teen years, I lost all forms of faith and optimism, realizing that the forms of spirituality in my life were clogged with human failings and childish obedience rather than any real understanding of hope. I'm sure you all have undergone similar questioning periods or ambivalent stages in your life regarding what you are really here to accomplish, even if they were not so pronounced or disruptive as mine or perhaps more so. We all eventually have to realize that our state of understanding is in constant flux if we are ever to come to terms with our own failings and achieve any kind of real wisdom.

Not that I claim any kind of real wisdom; I am only just now coming to the full understanding that what I think now will eventually be usurped by another thought and that I will never achieve any final pinnacle of awareness. There is no final pinnacle after all, and no better or worse. No, what I am trying to say is that I'm just now coming to the understanding that the purpose of my life, in this moment at least, is evolution (And before you say anything... I don't mean a biological evolution, Jeff ;)). If you pay attention, you'll see a pattern of reoccurrences in your life. Every time a situation arises it provides you an opportunity to react however you want. When you refuse to change how you react, you do not evolve but only continue to perpetuate the cycle. If you break the cycle, new opportunities can arise for you to grow and evolve in new ways. The funny thing is, no one has to be conscious of this pattern and often your growth occurs in a sub-conscious state, but if you pay attention to it, you can start to control it.

I could go into my latest thoughts on life here, but without belaboring the point this last summer I started to see this pattern in a different way than I had before. Deliberately, I pulled myself away from the path that I had found myself on, and stepped outside of the cycle. Albeit, I did it in a fairly comfortable way--with a job that was relatively easy to get (due to strong connections and actual experience I had never realized I had) and that provided me with a short term guarantee of not having to figure out what else to do. My outright, conscious goal with this job was to push my limits of my self-definition, primarily socially. What happened was a strange shift. I discovered that the social definition was a piece of cake to alter, but multiple other aspects of my life shifted far more drastically than I had even dreamed. Somehow, I am now absurdly optimistic compared to the girl I was six months ago. I am happier, healthier, more stable, and so much more in control of my life that most of my anxiety about my future career has become a flimsy shadow of what it once was.

So there's a personal reason that when I sit in my hotel rooms alone with my TV, I start bawling every time I listen to Obama give a speech. It's not that I agree with everything he says, or expect that things will change overnight, it's that the rhetoric he uses meshes so completely with the experience I've had lately. He speaks about the evolution of America, with the obvious example of the gradual change from slavery to an African American president, but he carries it on into the future. While the last 8 years have been about staying the course and fighting any threat to our way of life as if America was a static nation, Obama is explicitly working at changing our way of life while retaining the principles that made us great. America is an ideal, one that may never be fully realized but one that we can strive towards, and while there is real work to be done, Obama's optimism regarding the ideology of our country is absolutely refreshing. After all, I have learned the value of being optimistic over the last few months... Less things go wrong when you optimistically know that it will all work out, if only because you automatically make space in your mind to react rather than anticipate and therefore can rectify any situation far faster.

His message is focused on sacrifice as well, with emphasis on the idea of community and hard work. I have long spent time separating myself from those around me since at one time, those around me separated themselves from me. Again, his message hits a nerve... as I have slowly begun to understand what a true community of friends I have and can have, and what a difference my "new-found" social skills have made. Acting out of Love towards everyone I meet is something I never really consciously decided to do, but I found myself doing it and started noticing it. A warm greeting and the intention of empathy in my heart makes such a difference... it's simply astounding.

So for me, every time our new president has gotten up on his podium to tell the American people that "Yes, We Can," my heart wrenches in the best way possible. I think I cry for the lost time, for the pain we all had to inflict on ourselves before we could come to this understanding and the pain that will continue to afflict us. I cry for the people who cannot fully understand the power of this kind of philosophy, including my own self-consciously simplistic understanding. I cry for the fear that the hope will fade and that the fear-mongering of the last few years will drop a pall over this light. I cry because I feel such immense joy that this world can change if we only let the power of the human spirit burst free of the chains of pessimism. I cry because I am intimately and personally wrapped around the philosophies that I am hearing our country embrace. I cry because I know that tomorrow the practical aspects of daily life will come creeping in on the celebration, and that we will all be tested as to whether we can actually live up to these ideals.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an idealist who never saw his full dream realized. The dreams of today will undoubtedly be similarly long-lasting and long-languishing before they can be fully realized. I smile because I know that there are others in the world that share the burden of hope that one day they will be realized. One day, we will evolve.

Rolling Through

Making the most of the short time I have in a city is sometimes really difficult. When I get into town it's already dark and then I have to combat hunger and fatigue to get myself to move. This week is both easy and hard because I'm flying everywhere... Hard because I have no mode of transportation other than cabs but easy because I've got some great cities.

In Houston I took the hotel shuttle to get some BBQ at Goode Co. The next night in San Antonio, I made the effort to go out and see the alamo and riverwalk on the local shuttle, but I ended up spending money on a cab ride home (although, for <$10 total, it was worth it!). Dallas was a stay at the hotel night, since we were in the middle of nowhere. Phoenix was fun because another PM was in town and so we went out to get some dinner. Then last night my presenter and I went to the hotel bar to chat, drink, and look at some of her amazing photos from her african safari. Today my flight doesn't leave until late so I'm going to be able to check my bags at the hotel and borrow their shuttle to Old Town to wander around the fun parts of Albuquerque.

So all in all, I guess I'm making the most of this job. I'll see how much I can keep this up, especially in colder climates. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough, or doing my job well because there is no one around to compare myself to. Perhaps that's the best thing of all... to be in a position to not really compare myself to other people. I definitely get feedback messages from my manager to reconfirm that I am not screwing up and in fact am doing quite well. God I appreciate those after not having much in the way of real feedback in my previous jobs... or maybe I just appreciate feeling managed rather than feeling like someone who is supervised by someone who makes awkward the general feeling surrounding them.

Oh, and by the way...

where the hell did all these social skills come from?

...and why have I been relegating myself to being the "nerd" when the only nerdy thing I really have going is the fact that every once in a while I throw out a rather large (but utterly appropriate) word?