mornings

It was always a prize to be the first one into the living room in the morning and get to claim the cushy green armchair that the sun warmed as it rose over the ocean. I was never the first one awake—that was always Grandpa, who by 7 a.m. might have on his hardhat or a pair of work gloves, might be peddling his bicycle up to Wilbur's to get the paper, might be doing a crossword puzzle at the dining room table. But I liked to be the first one into that chair and with a book, so I could spread my knees into the soft armrests and sink down into the cushion as I read. Eventually a parent might come into the room and stake out a spot on the sofa; a sibling or cousin might sprawl across the carpet; and by the time Grandma was in the kitchen fussing over breakfast at 8:30 or 9, we'd all be reading something, easing ourselves into the day in peaceful quiet.

Mornings elsewhere haven't always been quite the bliss of that. At home, we got up for school before sunrise and often drove there in the growing light. Once a week I had to make morning basketball practice, which meant I was in the gym and on the court before I'd normally even be out of bed. And on weekends at home, I usually slept in. Once I got to college, my weekday waking hour got significantly later, so it was something I took note of when I had a rare occasion to be out and about on the early side.

I distinctly remember an odd morning when I trekked through Harvard Square wearing hiking boots and a backpacking backpack, leading a group of freshmen to a bus we'd take to New Hampshire for their orientation trip. It was strange, for sure, to be carrying all that camping equipment through the middle of the city; but more so, what struck me as so notable at the time was the life that existed in the square at that hour—about 7 a.m. Unlike the afternoons and evenings, the streets weren't bustling; only here or there did a car drive past; only one or two at a time did pedestrians go by. But there were people out. And most moved slowly, carrying coffee or a brief case and seeming to be enjoying the bright sun and warm air. Was it just my imagination, I wondered, or was this the happiest time of day in the square?

A year later, I spent a month of summer in Honduras at archaeology field school. Unlike other archaeology students, we didn't have to sleep in tents out in the desert; instead, we stayed at a very basic but four-star hotel called La Madrugada (the dawn). When I was in the hotel and not busy having face-offs with rhinoceros beetles in the hallway or competing with geckos for use of the shower, I'd often be found hanging in a hammock near the patio that positively dripped with plants. I'd be listening to the brook that ran below the patio, or the old man who sang to the plants as he touched each leaf with wet fingers, or just daydreaming. I never did get to hang there long, as we were out in the ruins, digging or learning the world of the ancient Maya, pretty early. But it was a pleasure to grab even five minutes in one of the hammocks on that patio that faced the sunrise. It was quite the good way to start a day.

In my adult life, mornings have largely been dictated by commuting to work. I used to love having 30 minutes to myself in the car, listening to, possibly singing along to, certain music that I deemed either good for driving or good for morning uplift. It was a transitional 30 minutes, getting me comfortably from the world of sleep to the fast-paced world of work, and I enjoyed not having to do any thinking during that time. I'd just enjoy the fields and woods I drove alongside, later the winding path of the Charles River. I'd watch the sky, look for birds, take stimulation from the unfolding surroundings in order to fully awaken myself.

Having that time in the morning is something I've greatly missed while working at home for the last three years. Here I roll out of bed and into the shower; then I find myself somehow transported the very short distance to the kitchen all too quickly. Before I know it, I'm eating my cereal and opening my work email. I haven't been anywhere, done anything else. I have arisen to go directly to work. And yesterday, when instead the first thing I did in the day was drop my car off at the mechanic and then walk home on what would prove to be one of the warmest days of the year here, you can imagine that I really enjoyed the 10 minutes of transit.

As with Harvard Square, there is a different life to Noe Valley in the morning than the one I usually see. The park around the corner is quiet; maybe a dog plays, maybe a baby swings, but there aren't 50 of each yet; there aren't 50 sets of parents and owners filling the place with chatter. At the corner, the bus stop is full, rather than empty. And at the top of the hill, as I turn back to look at the east bay in the clear light that we've been missing with all the fires going on, there is a breeze and a richness of daylight that coincide to feel like the blustery wind of a morning at my favorite beach back east. That that temperature and that bit of moisture in the air are always here in San Francisco is not the point; that I don't very often get outside to experience them when the sun is at just that angle is what really struck me. Mornings, I have always thought, are a time for slowly coming forth, slowly brightening; perhaps in the new life I will settle into next week, I'll remember to enjoy them more; to let them, before I rush through them, just become.

open warm brilliant naked

I walked into the kitchen, headed toward the refrigerator, pulled something out—I didn't bother to remember what, as at this point the action was one I could have taken without any thought. But I had an awed grin on my face by the time I let the door swing shut. Right in front of me, at eye level, hung the magnetic words of a poem—and not one written by me. Later I would deem it a prophecy, and I would reconstruct it on each refrigerator in each apartment I'd move into it, hoping that if I kept it present in my mind and in my life, it might one day prove true. It said:

a man is out there for you
he is open warm brilliant and naked
and will devour you

Sara's grin was just as big as mine when I burst into her room to say thank you. She chuckled at my question of how long the poem had been waiting for me; just a few days, she said, and I kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. I still haven't let go of the delight I felt upon finding it—the delight of knowing that no matter the rejection I had just been through, I had a friend who had faith that my luck with men would change; the delight of knowing, too, the sort of man I should look forward to. She had summed it up so aptly: open warm brilliant and naked. In all the times a friend or a personality test had asked me to pick words to describe what I thought I might want in a man, none had so succinctly hit on the heart of it.

Openness, such a multifaceted gem: the ability to let others in; the ability to accept new thoughts, ideas, and people; the ability to be truthful. As I have ruminated on the perhaps serendipitous beginning of the list of characterizations with this word for seven or eight years now, I have settled on this being quite the sage starting point; without openness, how else can a relationship develop? Openness is like a doorway; it lets two people enter the same space.

Warmth, for me the founding principle of my interaction with anyone. If there is one thing I think I have to offer, it is this. If there is one thing I find myself drawn to in others, it too is this. This trait reflects not just an ability but a predilection for developing a closeness with other people. If by nature a person is open, it is still by choice that he or she emits warmth. Openness is like a doorway; warmth is what makes the space beyond it communal. Warmth is what adds enchantment.

Brilliance, something that takes a million forms. In a literal sense, it is emanation, radiance, vibrant light. In the more common usage, it is intelligence, or creativity, or wit—it is having a talent for or deep understanding of something. In my mind, that something could be anything. There is no way to weigh one sort of brilliance against another. All that matters to me is that a person know he has some and be able to find it; and delight in finding it. It is that delight that casts a glitter like fairy dust into the space inhabited by two people, that gives them something in the other to learn about or admire and by so doing unite them more securely together.

Nakedness, the state of showing all. It is equally emboldening to be physically and metaphorically naked in another's presence; it too can be equally unnerving. To strip down clothes and walls is a way of giving and of taking; it is a way of making people vulnerable, and a way of making them strong. It, too, is a way of being joyful; of shedding boundaries and shedding thought; of stepping into the realm of feeling rather than thinking. Openness and warmth draw two people together; openness, warmth, and brilliance give them a way to stay there; but it is nakedness that makes the space between them a certain kind of space and not any other.

It's poetic, this prophecy, and prophetic, this poetry, and what I like on top of that is that it's light-hearted, closing with hope of a delicious encounter and/or a vivacious metaphorical appreciation of me. And ambitious as the whole thing is, after all these years of not finding him, I still think Sara has described a real person, or many real persons, and I am tickled to know what I'm watching for as a trail of potential hims go by.

out of place

Last summer at a wedding, I reconnected with a friend from high school who turns out to live in the east bay. I was delighted to find that he lives here, as he was one of the people I grew up with who I knew I'd always feel at home with. What might seem funny about that to some of you is that it's not something I can say about most people I know from home. On the one hand, I always enjoy the rare chance to catch up with people I hardly know now but once did. I went to the same school for 13 years, and my classmates there were my world until I left for college; even the ones I wasn't close friends with I certainly knew, inevitably being in a class or some extracurricular together at some point in all that time. But there is part of me that always felt that they and I were from different camps, different worlds. Their parents were southern, mine weren't; their parents were loaded, mine weren't; their parents were Republicans, mine Democrats; their parents were born-again Christians, Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, but all Christian, while mine were Jewish by heritage and raised outside of any faith; their fathers were wealthy doctors and lawyers, mine a comparatively poor professor; their mothers were at home all day, or driving carpool, or providing snacks, while mine was at work until dinnertime, inspiring all kinds of unsubtle disapproval from the rest. I grew up in a homogeneous environment, and in it I looked and seemed no different than anyone else. But I felt the differences. My mindset was different, my world view and my belief system centered around completely different foundations than theirs.

So when my friend across the bay emailed me today to tease me about how many more people from our school had befriended him on facebook than had me, to tease me about his being connected on the web to some of my best friends from high school when even I wasn't, I decided to have a look at who is on facebook from that part of my life. As it turns out, most of the few friends I've stayed in touch with since leaving Atlanta have profiles, including one of my closest friends from high school—closest back then and closest now, which surprises me every time I see or talk with her because we could not feel more oppositely about things like George Bush, Adam and Eve, and the Georgia Bull Dogs (she went to UGA; my dad was a professor at Tech; if you've ever been to Atlanta, you understand this rivalry to be no different than Duke/UNC, Yankees/Red Sox, Cal/Stanford, etc., and if you've ever met this friend, you understand this rivalry to be an important part of life).

The schism between our thinking on such things is something we have always known about and never let matter; we had a great time together as teenagers and that's what we hold on to; that's what keeps us loving each other, no matter the differences in our lives' paths. That being said, it was still a shock to open her profile and see Republican listed under Politic Views, to see a John McCain banner running across the page.

My friend in the east bay had mentioned in his email to me that he did think accepting all these friends requests had made his profile significantly more bipartisan than he'd ever expected; and mine will head that way now too, and that's fine; when you've grown up the one who's different, you know better than to hold difference or disagreement against anyone else. But as I typed back to him my surprise, despite all preparation for it, at seeing her support for McCain right out there in public, I realized how cozy it has been spending the last 13 years of my life living in two of the most liberal places in the country—how cozy it has been being surrounded by people with views relatively similar to mine. The debates among my friends from both college and all the lives I've led since give color to the different gradations of liberalism; but other than having a very conservative college roommate, I've been sheltered all these years from non-liberal mindsets in the very same way that the majority of my classmates in Atlanta were sheltered from liberal ones.

That is to say, I've been in a bubble. And while I greatly appreciate that so many people see the world roughly as I do, that moment of shock reminded me of the importance of not just knowing that people see the world in different ways but also understanding how others see it—and why. The lack of that understanding has been a source of great animosity in our history and in our world today. So for all my discomfort with coming from a world full of people who believe certain things with ferocity, I remind myself to refrain from judging them and instead just listen to them. That is, after all, one of the great benefits of being out of place; you come to fully know something that is not yours.

concert review: Robert Plant and Alison Kraus at Berkeley's Greek theater

The concert gets an A despite the steepness of the hill we sat on, the dirt that blocked up my shoes as I descended it, and the foggy chill that set in about halfway through. The setting was stunning and the performances top-notch. I swear Robert Plant must be in love because I'd never expect to see him doing backup vocals, but he sure was good at it (and danced up a storm all the while; ever the rocker, he is). And when Alison Kraus added her voice to his songs, she just about ran away with the show. I was left with one thought and one thought only: somebody needs to let the country-bluegrass star record all of Led Zeppelin's songs, or at least an entire album. Because she just might rival Plant at pulling them off.

Going to California

In the basement of the house I grew up in, we had a guest room that my brother later took over as his bedroom. He was a teenager by then and sleeping in a room between his sister and his mother didn't seem cool. I don't think it had much to do with privacy, as his door was usually open and I was often in there with him. But it was an enormous room, with plenty of space at the foot of the double beds for a sprawling mound of library books to take form, and he would sit on the edge of his mattress or in a chair over that literary hill and play his electric guitar for hours. He liked to turn up the amp so you could hear his Jimi Hendrix-esque wailing down the street. His thick mane of wavy hair would fall around his shoulders, released after school from the ponytail he was required to keep it in while on school grounds, and he'd close his eyes and jam. I'd be sitting on the floor, trying to follow his fingers and understand how they made such melodies out of the sharp strings, or just reading poetry. I'd be sitting there, cozy on the 1970s shag rug, not even realizing how lucky I was to have him. Not realizing it isn't always like this between siblings; not realizing we might ever move apart and lose the chance to spend so much time together.

After he left for college, I moved my easel into his room. He had a walk-in closet full of his own paintings, and I thought they'd keep me good company while I tried to take after my mom and him and prove good at painting. They were a tough pair to rival in the artistic regard, as my mom had an entire pottery studio set up two rooms down, and my brother—who, being older, always learned everything earlier than I did—had thrown pots in his childhood, whereas I had only made small sculptures. So I set up my easel right in the middle of the room, where anyone could see what I was painting, and when I'd go in there after school—when no one else, mind you, was home to witness my progress—I'd pull a tape off his shelf and pop it into his boom box; I'd listen to his music while I painted. I got to know Hendrix that way, and the Rolling Stones, and even Drivin' n Cryin', a high school band from north Atlanta that quickly became one of my favorites.

At some point I started to pull out all the Led Zeppelin tapes that had formerly intimidated me, seeming to me to contain a sort of music you had to learn to listen to. I remember turning over the black tape cases in my hand, noting the sequential numbering of their white-font naming, wondering just how many songs these guys had recorded over time. I knew there was more to their talent than "Stairway to Heaven," and as I listened, I realized I didn't quite get everything they put out. But some songs really compelled me, and one in particular stuck. Many years later, a memory of the sound of it would spark an idea in my head a few paragraphs into writing fiction and I'd eventually type out 120 pages of my personal daydream of an adventure tale. I'd listen to "Going to California" and go west in my head, letting my main character take my journey and take the aching right out of me. A handful of years after that, I'd finally follow Robert Plant's voice all the way to California, and it's in memory of that song that I write tonight, knowing that tomorrow I will hear Plant sing in person, and though the songs will be Americana and bluegrass and nothing like the ones I used to play on that tape deck, his voice will still recall the myth that one tune created in my mind, the tug of it on my heart and—eventually—my life.

blogpal post

Have you ever had a penpal? Well I have a blogpal; she lives a good distance around the globe from me, and we've never met, but we have a mutual friend who reads us both, and we've started reading each other as well. Recently she posted something like something I'd been thinking about posting. So I'm initiating blogpal post #1, which means I'm responding directly to her, with all of you looking on. :)

This blogpal was writing about the Web and the way it teases you into feeling connected yet leaves a very I'm-alone aftertaste in your mouth. And I get that; I've felt that. Sometimes I am shocked by the number of times I drop by my computer, when doing something elsewhere in my apartment, to see if a new email has come in or a new post has popped up in Google Reader. It's true that my gmail account is open all the time—I live alone, I work at home; why close it? And because I don't, and because it re-loads itself, I tend to persistently check in on it. And because I spend a lot of my time one-on-one with the computer (as that's where all my work gets done, not to mention my writing), and because it is the easiest means of communicating with my friends and family, of following the news, of shopping, of checking the weather forecast, of playing Scrabble, of being connected to you right now—because it has become an incredible source of mental interaction with the world, I do at times find myself feeling an emotional tug toward it and then sometimes a sense of letdown when all the green circles in my gchat bar have gone orange or gray and I remember that I am, really, by myself at the computer.

But there are times when I think that interconnectedness is incredible. Recently, a friend went through a very tough week of sitting in a hospital waiting for her dad to come through surgery and finding at the end that more treatment was needed. She couldn't necessarily talk on the phone while there, so it felt good to be able to sit with her on gchat for hours and type this or that back and forth. We were both doing other things but we kept up a running chatter, and I felt as close to being there keeping her company as is possible from 3,000 miles away, which felt very good. Similarly, there are friends—and relatives—who I rarely used to hear from by phone but who regularly send me hellos and little updates through gchat or Facebook. And I've been able to edit every single English essay my former tutee in Boston has written in the past two years via gchat, as he literally sends me paragraph after paragraph, interspersed with queries like "Is that a thesis statement?" and "Did I support my point ok?"

So for all the bizarrity of developing a fond feeling toward a machine or something displayed on its screen, I appreciate that during the workday, as I sit here doing my business in solitary, there are 15 or 20 of you seemingly right there with me, sharing the latest news article you liked or a witty quip about politics or your recent adventures in your status bar. I like having this little-green-dot community alongside me, having all this information around me to peruse during breaks, having it be my turn to play a word against someone I haven't seen in 15 years but am delighted to be back in touch with.

I realize that enjoying that puts me at risk of getting attached to it as reality, of feeling I can't live without it, of feeling disappointment when I have it in hand but it's giving nothing back to me. So I make a point of enjoying the interconnectedness when I am for some purpose at the computer—and forgetting it the rest of the time. And I think that’s key—to resist relying on it, or expecting it to be more than it is. After all, everything on the Web is constructed and being constantly re-constructed; so it's a fickle creature, becoming only what a bunch of humans here or a bunch of humans there shape it to be.

prejudicial dating

Now that we're in our 30s, a friend and I often discuss dating on a more conceptual level. It's not that we think we're worrying about missing the boat; it's that dating changes as you get older, and to some degree, it's hard to tell whether you're changing appropriately with it. Now don't misinterpret that; I'm not saying I think we're not playing the game right for our age. I don't believe in playing games with dating, and I think mostly I succeed at not doing so. What I think you have to do—and what you are fortunate to have the gained wisdom to do well—when dating at an older age is shed some of the prejudices you once may have felt you had the luxury of sticking to.

Take for example an easy one: physical requirements. Years ago, when some friends of mine took a comment I made about there being "no Lara's man bar, no place where I can go and all the men are single, and available, and looking" and considered how we might build Lara's man bar, every detail of this bar full of men vying for my attention was catered to my pickinesses about who I would date. At the entrance would stand one of those "you must be above this height" cut-outs from the amusement park rides. Just inside would await not a coat rack but a shirt rack, since back then I liked men not only tall but well cut, and I really thought those things mattered; I really thought I could not be attracted to men who didn't meet those restrictions.

Over the years enough lanky guys of all heights and hair colors (I previously had a bias against blonds, too, though now I can't seem to get my eyes off them) have appealed to me that I've realized that the muscle does not make the man, and I've let go of some of those silly daydreams.

What's been harder to get over is my belief about how a guy I should be with should be. I don't mean what he does with his time or what he believes in; I mean how he is with me. I have long felt there are two ways to be in a relationship—co-dependent or independent. You won't be surprised to hear that I strongly favor the latter. Co-dependency goes against my entire being; no doubt because of the 22 years my parents spent poorly married, I strive to be as happy as I can be all on my own. Only once I have contentment as a single girl do I feel I am in shape to be in a relationship well. And as a person who has long known that contentment, I've been having a hard time finding someone else who both prizes that in me and has achieved it in him.

Now don't get me wrong—I'm not looking to be in an unloving or self-centered relationship; I am a born nurturer; I love pampering and caring for people and do it (if I do say so myself) very well and all the time. It's just that I believe in caring for yourself, too, and I want to be with someone who knows how to do that—who knows that I can be an incredible bonus on top of the rest of what he has but does have a lot there for me to build on, a joy all his own for me to add to.

To my surprise, the last few guys I've dated seriously or considered dating seriously have been a hint toward the co-dependent (my last boyfriend definitely was). All are still well-formed beings, so it's not like all they want in life is to be a boyfriend, but they definitely all view being in a relationship as better than not being—and that is very different than what I think I want. But am I foolish to stick with that prejudice? Am I foolish to think that someone who favors being in a relationship just for the sake of being in one is someone who could never make me happy?

I will admit that my leaning is still to avoid anyone who views alone as lonely, single as un-loved. But recently a part of me said to another part: reconsider that, just theoretically, and see what you think. And you know what struck me? Maybe someone who is a little emotionally needy is at least someone who is in touch with his emotions; and maybe that's just as important as having your whole sense of self sorted out. After all, I want someone who wants to be in a relationship because he wants to be with me; and to know he wants that, he's got to know what he feels. So I've been trying to lighten up on my judgments ; to remember that my m.o. in life is to live and love a lot, not just a little, and maybe the person who can return that comes in some quite different package than I expect.