This journey of yours will be no idle failure

It seems to me that when you're a twenty-something trying to start a career or get an honest job, everyone wants to give you advice. It seems everyone has their two-cents or well-worn soap box and a "secret" to success. At least that is how I feel sometimes. It can become overwhelming and frustrating. Especially when most of the said twenty-somethings are trying to find their own way in the world. Or just the way of things here and there. Add the task of applying all that advice while learning to balance all the newly acquired responsibilities of adulthood. That just makes it even more overwhelming, right?

 I certainly felt very overwhelmed until I realized I didn't need to feel that way. I didn't need to get all wrapped up in all that advice and guidance. For the most part, people mean well when they give advice. It seems like these past nine months or so, for whatever reason, there is a sudden legion of people who want to advise me and even mentor me. At first, it was such a struggle for me to even listen to one person without getting confused and therefore loosing some self-confidence, let alone figure out how to incorporate their advice into my life. Then I realized I don't have to. I don't mean that to be rude but I can still respect someone's advice even if I choose not to follow it. What matters is that I choose.

When I graduated college I didn't have a clear plan on how to get where I wanted to be. But I knew what field I wanted to work in. I knew exactly what I was good at and the areas at which I could excel. I had a very strong voice. And then that voice I had been developing since I started keeping a journal at the age of thirteen or so got lost. It became superseded by the voices of people around me. I stopped writing. I stopped feeling like myself. I was just living to do whatever I had to do to pay my school loans.



I got overwhelmed by all the fingers that were trying to direct me where to go in life. And all the voices that were hushing my own voice with their advice. I let myself believe that I'm young and my voice doesn't matter. I should listen to someone who knows better. Who has truly been there and done that.

But I've realized that it doesn't matter how young I am in comparison to others who seem to be older and wiser. I've had some amazing and exceptionally unique experiences. I've seen a few things. I've been a few places. I'm nowhere near to knowing everything but I've learned a lot and most importantly I've learned a lot about myself.

So, all this advice everyone wants to give all the twenty-somethings? This post is about not having to take everyone's advice. But let me share my little piece of advice about not taking everyone's advice: When following your dreams* the only thing that is is impossible is to please everyone. It is your dream after all. This does not mean being completely reckless and selfish. There have been a few true mentors in my life so far whose guidance I honor above all others and will consciously seek out if needs be. Technically speaking, I feel like college did prepare me for the "real world" only because of how I've chosen to use those experiences. No one cares what I wrote my honors thesis about in college. No one cares what I studied abroad. But I do and I have to make the qualities I learned from college matter in the "real world." Otherwise I'd have to follow every piece of advice ever given to me and make my life fit someone else's formula. No twenty-something should ever have to do that.

*I realize using the term dreams is overly romantic and unrealistic. Instead I use this as a blanket term for whatever ambitions, hopes, plans, or goals one has for their future near or far.

Meanwhile...

Well, my tax refunds certainly gave my "I-need-a-new-computer" savings fund a boost but I'm still projecting that I will not be able to make the much anticipated purchase until late May. If you had told me a year ago that I'd have to live with out a computer of my own for two months or more I would have had a meltdown at the mere thought. It has been incredibly refreshing, even though I had found myself frequenting certain digital realms  less and less for various reasons before my Macbook bit it. But what have I been doing with all this extra time on my hands, you ask? Aside from watching more awful reality television shows that I swear I'll stop cold turkey tomorrow. Or next. Or next season. Well, here is a list of some newish hobby-like discoveries and enjoyable moments or occurrences I probably would not have had the chance to relish otherwise:

I have been making more headband creations akin to what I made friends for Christmas, only this time with the intention of selling them on Etsy. The designing (inspired by mythology and/or paintings) and beading and sewing really settles my mind and relaxes me. Please, don't let me become a bloggercrafterinstagrammer cliche.

A lot of dog walking has happened without the iPhone and with good company and good conversation topics. 

I finally finished A Clash of Kings, the second book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series upon which HBO's Game of Thrones is based. I started the third book immediately and every day I manage to read at least a few pages whether it is at the gym or in bed at night. I watched the first season of the show and couldn't get myself through the first book since I knew what was going to happen but the second book pulled me. A few of the characters have grown on me and I love that feeling when I sit down to watch the newest episode in the middle of the week (I save it so I have something to look forward too during the work week when I need a pick-me-up) and meet a character for the first time that I liked in the books. Example: Jaqen H'ghar. It is also nice to continue to take delight in favorable casting from last season but only one example comes to mind: Joe Dempsie. (Of course, this is because of Skins.)

I went to the midnight premiere of The Hunger Games, mostly out of nostaglia for the Harry Potter premiers. The only reason I allowed myself to go on a Thursday night was because I lucked out and had that Friday off so I could sleep in.

I bought my mom a Nook Color for her birthday. The look on her face was priceless when she opened the box that it was wrapped in which was in another wrapped box which was in another wrapped box which was in one final wrapped box. (I've always wanted to do that.) And I just bought her the most perfect pair of earrings off JewelMint for Mother's Day.

I've been back to filling up my writing journal nearly every night. When I started working full time I stopped writing which was terrifying at first. Now that I'm working on balance and that life isn't so complicated, I have been able to not only think about things I like thinking about but thinking creatively and being able to express that onto the page. The journal I've been writing in since the spring of 2009 only has maybe 20 blank pages left.

Group texting is my new favorite thing. I don't know why I/we (meaning my friends) had never thought of it before. We're all spread out in different states, living different lives (oh, the curse of being twenty-somethings trying to be real people) and I can only speak for myself but it is probably true for the others: I'm sad that we have gone from talking every day to only talking every month or so and just to "catch up." So, now we've been keeping the group text going on our iPhones since the conversation's inception a week ago. What a feeling to know what awful vanity plates and bumper stickers my friends have encountered, or what our bosses are saying out of context, or why one of us discovered a soggy roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, and so on, all in real time! It is those types of things that friends like sharing anyways, right? But what we forget to mention in those "catch up" conversations every once in awhile.

Two words: Jacques Brel.

I watched the entire Woodstock documentary from glorious start to glorious finish. I rewound and rewatched the good parts. Like, have you even seen Michael Shrieve's drum solo? Far out. However, I must get my hands (or eyes, rather) on  the directors cut because Janis was omitted in the release version.

This past weekend, I got my first haircut in a year and a half. Watching Woodstock almost changed my mind but I just got a trim.

These are words.

Because I would like to share these words and this writer with you. Because I needed 24 ounces of coffee this morning to even function even though I don't want to be one of those people. Because it is definitely spring already in Georgia but what I wouldn't give tonight to be up north in that coffee shop at the bottom of that hill, reading and writing creative non-fiction like it was still that one semester when I sat behind this particular curly-haired wordsmith.


 

"Under My Breath" by Josh Plattner

Under my breath, I say things like “dumb bitch,” “idiot,” “jackass prick.”  Sometimes I like to imagine what they’d do if they actually heard my private thoughts, how they’d react if their ears picked up just a little more sound.  I like to think if only they had hearing like the dogs they all look like, mangy mutts, we’d really have a show. 

I should be thankful that they will never understand the muttered quips. That he and she—those ordinary people, boring as hell—will never have to catch the fleeting sounds of true feelings, of private thoughts.  I should be thankful because the alternative is unemployment, living with mommy and daddy in some god-fearing, ignorant town in the middle of nowhere and picking at meth scabs until they flake off and flutter to the floor. 

“Is it spring yet?” she asks.

Not technically, dumbass, it’s barely fucking March.

Instead, I say: “You’d sure think so with this weather, eh?  It never fails to surprise me, the amount of change a single day can bring!”  Even as I’m saying it out loud I want to vomit on the counter.

“The sunshine can stay if you ask me!  I’m so tired of this gray, gray, gray!” Her exclamation marks are almost visible on the clouds of her gum-laced breath.

 “Well it’s certainly livening things up.  It’s nice to see some sunshine for a change!”

“Yessir, yessir!”

“Your drink, mam.”

She takes a sip. “Mmm.  To sunshine!”

I hope that mocha spills all over your blouse you dumb slut.

“To sunshine indeed.”

Her skin is like parchment, like a cadaver.  She could almost blend right in to that gray sky she continues to condemn at the milk bar. I want to tell her that the way her eye droops reminds me of a bloodhound’s jowls, that her purse is dirty and looks terrible next to that entity someone could maybe call a stomach.  I want to tell her skim-but-with-whip is still drinking whole milk and that a 20oz coffee-adjacent beverage isn’t going to hide her ashy teeth and damaged hair.  Instead of all this, I say:

“Have a nice day, Candace.”

Christ. I even know her fucking name.

It’s the smile, isn’t it?  It makes you feel like you a give a shit. Or maybe it’s the shirt and tie, the tuxedo apron and the shoes.  I don’t want you to think I feel this way about all of you.  I just hope you know that much.  Most of you are fine, are decent, are okay.  It’s the very small number of the rest of you that make my skin feel like a beehive, that coax the hairs of my neck to attention.  I can’t even throw a clichéd: “you know who you are” your way because there’s just no possible way you could.  I’ve become that good at hiding it.  Professional smile-and-nodder. 

I should make a fucking business card.

But that’s life isn’t it?  Not really knowing how anyone feels? I look at you and say what a nice face you have, what friendly eyes, what charming personal style. Well here’s to lying my mouth off.  Here’s to bile-tasting compliments that drip from my tongue.  Here’s to white lies that creep over our shoulders and set our minds to rest.

If I can see the yellow of your teeth from the counter, I am not letting you in until that clock tells me that it’s 6:30.  I don’t care how furiously you’re knocking, I don’t care that you only want a cup of light roast, I don’t care that you’re going to miss your flight.  If you don’t have the respect for me to brush your fucking mouth in the morning, you’re not getting through that door before I’m ready to open.  

Get back in your goddamn car and go the hell away.

The thing is, when you whisper things like “shallow,” “egomaniac,” “dick” under your breath, I notice them all.  I hear every syllable you have to say.  Hell, you could be thinking it and I’ll already know that you feel x-y-z about little ol’ me. It’s nothing personal, I’m sure. You just hate that behind the salmon colored button up, beneath the thick curly hair, beyond the smile and the charisma is someone you still need to brighten up your day.  I’m the only person who will do it for you and it will always be me, or me-adjacent. 

Biting thoughts amidst a façade of service: you’re stuck with a friendly face and a whole cloud of sinister undertone.

It’s 6:30.

Is it spring yet? 

This is the chapter of the forest

Last Friday I went to a Trevor Hall concert. During one of the first few songs he flicked his guitar pick unexpectedly, between chords, into the crowd. I don't think anyone saw because it happened so quick, but it hit me in the chest, right over my heart. It felt like a sign. The pick was flung straight through the crowd and it me in the chest. It fell to the ground where someone next to me picked it up: a girl who was there with her boyfriend. Trevor tossed another pick into the crowd at the end of the show and her boyfriend caught it. That was a bit fortuitous for them as well. But that first guitar pick hit me right in the heart.

It was as if the Universe was forcing me to take notice. Here is your heart - use it. I know I haven't been connected with myself, with life, or with much of anything lately. I've been meditating and practicing yoga but I think the disconnect is somehow rooted in my lack of roots. Or the notion I have about myself that I know myself best when I am lost. When I am somewhere off in the world, when I know places. It has been over a year since I've traveled abroad. My entire "coming of age" journey was a literal journey - I'd been abroad for significant stretches of time every year since 2008.

In the span of a week, since the Trevor Hall concert, a series of seemingly unconnected events in my life and with my family has occurred. And my perspective has changed. Earlier this week I could feel my energy at work was very different. I attributed it to the after-concert high some people experience for 3-5 days after attending a great show. I guessed that by the following week things would be back to how they were before. That I'd be drained again and having anxiety about projects at work when I wasn't at work. But now I'm not so sure that is true.

My perspective has changed. It didn't shift over night. It didn't even shift just this past week. It has been shifting this whole time I've been feeling disconnected, but it was the events of this week that finally lifted my chin. As if the entire world has transformed and someone has put their thumb under my chin to pull my gaze up and show me the new landscape. The Universe is calling me to take notice. It sang to me, pointed at my heart, and lifted my eyes.

I love the word universe. Think for a moment of what it means literally: a united verse. Or directly from the Latin, uni as in one and versus as in a verse. Or the Latin versum as in changed, turned, rotated. When my perspective is affected by things like anxiety it makes sense that I feel disconnected. Anxiety is, in a sense, a selfish feeling. It is a reaction to stress and typically sets the stressor and the self at odds. It is letting the worry attached to the stressor be greater than the self and thereby giving it a power that it does not deserve. When I have anxiety about a project at work I try to put myself back into perspective - that I am bigger than the worry and that in the scope of my life and in the scope of everything else, that worry really doesn't matter. It is a waste of energy to worry about it, especially if it is work related and I'm using my time off to worry about it. Letting go of anxiety by refreshing one's perspective is an opportunity to reconnect with the Universe. And the other way around.

On the second to last day of 2011 I got my first tattoo. I chose a quote from the book that first changed my perspective around the time I first discovered yoga - Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. The meaning of the quote is the same notion that I'm trying to explain. The Universe is very, very vast. It is everything and everywhere at once. I'd like to save the full tattoo story for a post of it's own but I'm bringing it up in conclusion to all this because the quote that is now a true part of me has helped me remember my perspective.

So, with my after-concert high echoing stronger and longer, with the help of the Universe, and with a perspective that is keeping me focused on what truly matters I'm feeling very grateful in this moment. Despite the events of this past week I'm feeling so grateful for all my blessings, especially the ones that can't be bought or given any value beyond the value it holds in my heart. Here is your heart - you got this.

I Know Places: Durham

"I Know Places" is a series of guest posts written by friends, bloggers, photographers, fellow gypsies, and travelers. People who have fallen in love with a place. People who know places and who know that kind of love I have tried many times to put into words myself. I've invited these people to write an ode of sorts to their place. Their city. Their country. Their greatest love.

This edition in the "I Know Places" series is from a past schoolmate and fellow Classicist of mine, although technically now she is a Medievalist. We were in Latin 101 together my first semester at undergrad and since then we've shared many stories of our travels and studies. Currently, Sarah is an official expat working on her PhD in York. She blogs at The Contemporary Lamp and tweets as mightyminerva. I've been looking forward to having her post here about Durham, especially since it's Cathedral appears in the Harry Potter Films and Elizabeth.

When I was asked to write about “my” city, oddly enough I didn’t choose the city of my undergraduate education. I didn’t choose my birthtown in Texas or my parents’ hometown in Oklahoma, my first cosmopolitan home near Seattle, or my current home in York, England. Don’t get me wrong; I love all of these places for different reasons. However, I didn’t feel the kinship with these places that I do with the city in which I lived for the year of my master’s degree study.

Durham is a relatively small city in northern England. It’s often overlooked by Americans in favour of the American version in North Carolina or its larger neighbour, the party city Newcastle (home recently of the cast members of the UK’s answer to The Jersey Shore: The Geordie Shore). The few winding streets in my Durham’s city centre lead up to and around Palace Green and the gorgeous Durham Cathedral, an epic achievement in Norman architecture. The Cathedral is visible almost everywhere in town, and it’s the first thing I noticed as my train rolled into the rail station. It may not have the glowing, intricate façade of the York Minster or the notoriety of Westminster Cathedral in London, but the relatively simple majesty visible outside and within the nave immediately demanded my loyalty to it before any other church building. The legend goes that monks removing the body of St. Cuthbert in the ninth century suddenly could not move the saint’s body any further, leading them to build a church on that site. Of course, the position of the Cathedral is a powerful one geographically — it leans out over the river and its position on the highest hill in town gives it a view of the surrounding land — but I’d rather believe that the same attachment I feel for the city encouraged the monks to choose that spot. If I needed further proof of the spiritual power of that place, during World War II the clouds suddenly obscured the Cathedral from the view of a Nazi air raid, preventing them from attacking this symbol of British history and culture. Besides now being the location of St. Cuthbert’s body, the medieval historian St. Bede has his tomb in the Cathedral. It’s not surprising that the Britons have voted Durham Cathedral their favourite building several times (including this past year).

The Cathedral in December.

On the other side of Palace Green (a grassy area in the centre of the Palace Green Library, Castle, theology department building, and English Heritage/UNESCO centre) is the castle, which has become the main building of University College at Durham University. Landmarks like the Tower in London or Edinburgh Castle are hubs of tourist activity, while the Durham Castle is woven into the student experience. Yes, tours go on inside, but they’re led by university students. If you relish the thought of sleeping in a medieval fortress, tourists can spend the night in one of the rooms. This area of Palace Green and its buildings are at the centre of city’s peninsula carved by the River Wear. The university’s rowing teams, summer punters, and fly fishers regularly make use of the river in the sunny months (though I have seen the dedicated rowers out in snow and sleet.)

The Cathedral as seen on a bridge over the River Wear.

Besides being a fairly quiet city, the people in the North also contribute to my affinity for Durham. If you’ve ever been to the Upper Midwest in the US, you’ll understand. Large metropolitan areas like Seattle and London attract busy people who seem unable to spare a few moments to smile at fellow passengers on the bus or to chat while queuing in a shop. In Durham (as in the Midwest), you’re likely to strike up a conversation while perusing the vintage jewellery at the indoor market, waiting to place your order at the charming coffee shop Flat White, or collectively shaking your heads waiting for a lorry to pass from the Cathedral to the city centre. You also might inadvertently get a lecture about Northern slang (my favourites are the terms of endearment “pet”—short for “petal”—and “flower”) or wind up with a personal tour guide in the Cathedral for a part of the afternoon if you bump into the right person.

The brilliant castle from St. Margaret of Antioch’s Church, Durham. (The Cathedral would be just to the right of the castle.)

Perhaps Durham isn’t the ideal destination for hen parties like York or Newcastle, and it doesn’t boast the fabulous museums that London and Edinburgh do, but the charm of the city isn’t necessarily found in just visiting it. The Cathedral, Castle, and city centre may take half a day to see. The charm is really in living there. The local past is still a part of the culture — the modern library and cinema complex has a statue of those monks outside, and the big event of the past calendar was the Lumiere festival during which manuscript images lighted up the façade of the Cathedral. Various churches engage the public’s interest with events like St. Margaret of Antioch’s 850th anniversary celebration of a medieval service complete with chickens, period dress, hay on the floor, and Latin mass.

Even though I could barely see the outline of the Cathedral against the dark sky as my train rolled into Durham for the first time, I somehow fell in love with the city instantly. I’m not sure if it was the hilly surroundings of County Durham, the crisp, cool air of the North at dusk in summer, or the charm of a city small enough to warrant just two train platforms (on for northbound, one for southbound), but there was something about the city that spoke to my soul. Without knowing it, I’m sure you’ve been enchanted, too. The Cathedral stood in for Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter films and in certain scenes was the royal palace in Elizabeth.

A bridge over the River Wear heading up to Palace Green and the Cathedral.

St. Oswald’s, one of the parish churches near my house in Gilesgate.

Along one of the streets in the city centre near the Cathedral and St. John’s College.

A springtime surprise on one of the houses near where I lived.

The Cathedral from a bridge over the River Wear.

Want to be a contributor to "I Know Places" on Miss Emalise the Fox Charmer? Email me or tweet me and tell me about your greatest love.