37days

mindful monday.

2009-12-07T06:00:00-05:00

Timelapse movie: The Alps -- part I from Michael Rissi on Vimeo.

Timelapse movie: The Alps -- part II (night) from Michael Rissi on Vimeo.

conference : comparisons are odorous

2009-12-06T14:18:18-05:00

December 6 Workshop or conference. Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

I've spoken at a lot of conferences this year, meeting people around the U.S., hearing firsthand about the challenges their industries are facing. One stands out for two lessons.

Austin, Texas. Risk managers met for two days to learn. I was the keynote speaker on Day Two.

Lesson #1 : "Comparisons are odorous." -William Shakespeare

Before leaving for the conference, I took a look at the final online program to get a sense of context. How might my words fit the whole of their meeting? I was to be the closing keynote. Another woman was their opening keynote. She was the first American woman to row across the Atlantic ocean solo. She was also the first woman and first American to travel over land to the geographic South Pole, skiing 750 miles from the ice shelf to the pole.

THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO ROW ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN SOLO. MUCH LESS THE WHOLE SOUTH POLE THING.

I had two things in common with her: I am a woman. I am American.

Immediately, I started comparing my message to what I could imagine hers is. "I HAVEN'T ROWED ACROSS ANYTHING!" I said to my business partner. "MUCH LESS A FREAKIN' OCEAN!"

"What I have to say will way pale in comparison. I'm sure she'll have stories of storms and overcoming adversity and videos of big swells. I've got nothing."

"I didn't realize this was a competition," he said to me quietly.

On the plane ride to Austin, I realized that raising two children might be just as hard--or harder--than rowing across the Atlantic solo.

Lesson #2 : Conferences have an opportunity to support local artists

At that conference in Austin, each general session was begun by a local musician who played for ten minutes. A young singer/songwriter took the stage as my session began. "I'm happy to be here," she said. "This is the earliest in the day I've ever played music. And you look like the most sober crowd I've ever played to." She charmed us all for ten minutes of simple guitar music and her beautiful voice.

Why don't more conference organizers look for simple, meaningful ways to support local artists?

#Best09

night out : by the fire

2009-12-05T23:26:43-05:00

Best of 09 Challenge

December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

Bend, Oregon. July. Yes, indeed. Fire is magic.

book : i think it important that we witness

2009-12-04T11:34:15-05:00

Best of 09 challenge.

December 4 Book. What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

For the past four years I have hosted a monthly conversation about books that help us "bridge differences": fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic novels, nonfiction, creative nonfiction--all looking at the differences that link and separate us. Hearing from around the world about realities that aren't mine, but that inform and illuminate and sometimes shock mine, about situations and mindsets and from voices I might not otherwise hear. So many of the books I've chosen and read for that group have stayed with me: Richard Powers' The Time of Our Singing is probably the one that I go back to most (and the best work about race in America I've ever read). Luis Alberto Urrea's The Devil's Highway, Stephen Kuusisto's Planet of the Blind, T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain, and Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese have been standouts for me. (Note: This face-to-face Bridging Differences Book Group continues, and a virtual version has just begun.)

Two months ago, our group read Dave Eggers' What is the What.

I remember waking up one morning right after starting graduate school at the venerable University of Virginia (Mr Jefferson's University) and turning on the radio to hear an endless three-day reading of all the names on the Vietnam Memorial as it was dedicated in Washington, D.C. On that same day, a beloved of mine--a lifelong Quaker--was starting army boot camp. Dead war victims, graduate student, Quaker soldier. Dead war victims, graduate student, Quaker soldier.

As I lay in bed that morning listening to the somber roll call, I remember being jarred by how different reality can be at the very same time for us humans. I was embarking on a luxurious life of reading and writing as I studied the figure of the artist in fiction. Those killed in Vietnam were still dead, their families and a nation grieving beside a moving black slit in the ground. My peaceful Quaker friend was being yelled at a drill sergeant all at the same time. At exactly the same moment.

I felt the same when I read Dave Eggers' brilliant novel, What is the What.

The harshness of the Sudan. Lost Boys. Valentino's childhood. Nothing like my life. Happening parallel to my life, yet so removed. Unimaginable. And yet real.

I am reminded of some writing I did right after Hurricane Katrina:

I was driving home from a meeting recently and in a rush of emotion, I felt overwhelmed by all that I care about in the world and all the needs that I can’t fix—it breaks my heart that children are abused, that manatees are gnawed up by the motors of unthinking Sunday boaters, that there are people in the world who are literally starving to death as I type this, that…, that…, that…

I felt a physical sense of despair in that quiet moment on Merrimon Avenue between Jiffy Lube and Ingles, a sense that I could never do enough in this world, that it was too overwhelming, the need. Maybe it was the news of three little boys found dead in a car trunk in New Jersey in the next door neighbor’s driveway, or maybe it was the faces of Tsunami orphans, or the suicide of a popular downtown coffee shop owner in the Swannanoa River. It’s all those things, and more. It’s just bloody overwhelming; I feel so ill prepared, so inept, so inadequate to solve the gaping aches around me. And I feel so selfish sometimes when I simply walk away from need, when I close my door, when I say no or turn the channel.

And now, the hell that was New Orleans and Biloxi and their neighbors: unimaginable dislocation, death, destruction, drowning, all that people had in the world floating in an oily brew of stagnant water, including the bodies of loved ones. This is not an inconvenience or a rise in gas prices. No, these are people’s wild and precious lives.

What happens when our infrastructure collapses? Most of us will never know, not in this country, no. But some in the Gulf Coast of the United States know it harshly right now, up close and personal. While I’m brushing my teeth and using too much water in the shower, they know. While I’m talking on my cell phone and emailing this to you, they know. When I’m eating dinner cooked in my own kitchen and watching the waters rise in New Orleans on the evening news, they know. And they will know for a long time to come. And of course, the hardest hit are always those who were already the hardest hit, those who are always the hardest hit: the poor. How can they possibly rebuild their lives when their livelihood has been destroyed, just like their homes? Where on earth will they go when they leave the Superdome, that last safety net before the free fall?

The wave of horror I feel at the world’s pain has been revealed to me as a peculiar form of privilege; there is a sense of horror and a terrible sense of relief at the same time, if I am honest. I am not there, which allows me the luxury to have an intellectual response to this event. I must dig deeper into what it means to be connected to these people who are so affected; it is that intellectual response to tragedy that keeps us immune, that makes these tragedies all the more possible in the world. I manage my reaction to them by keeping them small tragedies, the size of my TV screen—I cannot allow that to happen and I must all at the same time. What am I doing about what’s happening in the Congo? Nothing. What am I doing about what’s happening in the Middle East? Nothing. What am I doing about starving children in the world, about starving children in my town, about the man with no shoes downtown? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

What is the What opened me to a reality that, now I have seen it, I cannot pretend I haven't seen.

I think it important that we witness.

[Image from here]

article : humility, ego, and greatness

2009-12-03T09:50:10-05:00

Best of 09 challenge.

December 3 Article. What's an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious'd and reference throughout the year.

I met a woman last year when Life is a Verb came out because she invited me to come to South Bend, Indiana, to read from that book to her neighbors and friends. I flew into South Bend in the heaviest rain I think I've ever seen outside of the monsoon season in Sri Lanka. She stood in the airport dripping wet holding a sign so I would recognize her. Her name is Kathryn Ruth Schuth and she pointed me to this article about ego and humility earlier this year. It was written by Ron Rolheiser.

Humility, Ego, and Greatness

2009-02-15

For most of us, I suspect, the word ego has a negative connotation. To accuse someone of having a big ego is to accuse him of being overfull of himself, inflated, grandiose, and lacking in humility. We almost always oppose the words ego and humility. To have a big ego is to not be humble.

But that can be simplistic and untrue. To have a strong, large ego isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is a needed thing, especially if we are ever to achieve anything of worth. Nobody does anything great without a strong ego, and that doesn't mean that he or she isn't humble. For example:

Few people would ever think of Mother Theresa as having had a big ego. We think of her as humility incarnate. Yet, clearly, she had a huge ego - a powerful self-image that allowed her to stand before the whole world convinced of her truth, convinced of her worth, and convinced of her importance. She could stand before anyone in the world secure in the knowledge that her person and her word were important. It takes a powerful ego to do that, one more powerful than most of us possess. Indeed that was one of the keys to her greatness. She was aware that she was a unique and blessed instrument of God in this world and she was secure enough to act on that.

And yet she was humble. She was aware as well, always, that everything that made her unique and special and powerful did not come from her, but from God. She was simply a channel of somebody else's power and grace. She had a huge ego, but she wasn't an egoist. She was never full of herself, only full of God.

John Paul II might be similarly judged: He too was a model of humility, but he too clearly had a huge ego. He could stand in front of millions of people, stretch out his hands, and say: "I love you!" (Along with the implied corollary.) "And it's important that you hear this from me!" It takes a powerful ego to do that. Most of us would experience a congenital seizure if we tried to do this. We would be blocked by a hundred internal inhibitions, all of them paralyzing us with the words:"Who do you think you are to say something like that! What gives you the right to think the world wants a public declaration of your love?"

Again, like Mother Theresa, John Paul II could say this and still be humble because he was also clear that his uniqueness and grace did not come from him or belong to him. He was only its channel. He could access greatness and let it flow through him without apology, but he didn't identify with that greatness or claim it as his own. That's the difference between humility and grandiosity, between being great and being an egoist. An egoist accesses the greatness, but, unlike a saint, identifies with it and claims it as his own.

Spirituality, in general, has been slow to admit the importance of ego and has often been in outright denial of the role it plays in greatness, especially spiritual greatness. Somehow we cannot admit that saints like Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, or Therese of Lisieux had huge egos - powerful self-images that made them secure in the sense of their unique importance. Instead we project on to them a false idea of humility which isn't true to them and which hurts us.

It hurts us because, for so many of us, the bigger problem in our lives, including our spiritual lives, is precisely that our egos are too weak. Our self-image is too weak to allow us to do anything really great or even just to reach out in warmth and love.

Because our self-image is weak, unlike Mother Theresa or John Paul II, we are too inhibited to reach out, to speak our truth and to express our love. We have too many internal voices (no doubt, originally external voices) that habitually paralyze us with the words: "Who do you think you are! That's just pride and arrogance! That's just ego! You aren't talented enough or good enough to do this! Nobody wants this from you! "

As well, it is not because our egos are strong but because they are weak that we so often feel the need to protect ourselves. We struggle to be vulnerable, to not be paranoid and protect ourselves. Why? Precisely because we aren't secure enough inside, because our egos and our sense of self-worth are shaky. Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and John of the Cross never needed to protect themselves. They were secure enough to be vulnerable. They had strong egos.

We should always be weary of pride, of egoism. But false humility does not protect us against pride. Instead it prevents us from being warm and loving - and from ever achieving anything great.

(photo by Kathryn Ruth Schuth)

thinking thursday.

2009-12-03T08:49:50-05:00

Every Thursday, a few links, including one to You-Know-Who. (Where I can follow the serendipitous thread I followed to get there, I'll include a thanks to the person who surfaced it for me.)

mind :: my brain and yours

Gratitude can change your life.

In a month of giving, a healthy reward.

My reading list for 2010 will include this and this and this. It will also include this, this, this, and this.

body :: my place and yours

Vegan cookies invade your cookie jar.

You know that chicken is chicken, right?

Urban agriculture for the small neighborhood.

Why exercise makes you less anxious.

soul :: my heart and yours

Of course. (Thanks to Desiree Adaway)

Why loneliness can be contagious.

A final thought :: "Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals." -Colman McCarthy

(image from here).

restaurant : topo topo toronto

2009-12-02T23:52:07-05:00

Best of 2009 challenge.

December 2. Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

Two restaurant moments for 2009: Chicago and Toronto.

Chicago: The moment any client asks me to come to Chicago, I put them on hold, call the restaurant Topolobampo on another line to see if they have reservations, and then confirm. This has happened for several years. So far, knock on wood, client requests and open tables have coincided quite nicely. When they don't match up, I think you and I both know that Topolobampo rules.

My last trip there was in October; my next is already booked for January 20th. In October, I booked a table for five, though I was traveling alone. I felt sure others would come, and they did. Two 37days readers I had never met and a couple with whom I had shared the sheer ecstasy of Topolobampo before.

Tasting menus. Margaritas to make you weep. Wine pairings.

But sometimes you never know how a dinner with strangers will work, do you? Sometimes conversation lags, small fits and starts, comparing numbers of twitter followers and S.A.T. scores and all. Sometimes it works out just like that time in college when you went to dinner with a man your friend Howard warned you about and you spent the whole evening wanting to poke your eyes out with your own fork. Sometimes you pass secret messages to the wait staff to hurry things along before you have to start screaming lines from some indie art film and scare the other diners. Sometimes it just sucks. Great amazing fantastic food and the rest sucks. I hate when that happens. Like if I were tipping my tablemates and me--us as a unit, I'd give us a penny for not trying hard enough--or for trying too hard.

But not this night. This one stands out for its perfection. I walked in preoccupied by some medical tests the day before, not sure I could do it, thinking--in fact--that I should cancel, feeling I couldn't fully participate. I left full, sated, happy, enlightened, entertained, challenged. Not only of the service (IMPECCABLE) or the food--each dish met with gasps--but the conversation, the hours and hours of laughter. It just worked, this unknown conglomeration of humans around a circular table in one of the best restaurants I know. It just worked. It worked.

We walked out into a light rain and went our separate ways.

Toronto a month later: An evening alone in a city I don't know. At midnight when I arrived, of course I spent valuable sleeping time perusing Where Toronto. Dining, Accommodations, Concerts.

I moved my finger down the page. November 13th, it read. What is the date, I thought to myself. I think it's the 13th today. November 13th. "Lyle Lovett" it said.

Lyle Lovett.

I love Lyle Lovett.

I've never seen Lyle Lovett in concert.

I called the front desk. It's now 12:13 a.m.

"WHAT IS THE DATE TODAY?" I shout into the receiver.

"At your service, Ms Dig," the voice answers. "How may I help you?"

Why correct the pronunciation?

"WHAT IS THE DATE TODAY?"

"You mean the upcoming day? Or the day we just ended?"

"THIS DAY! THIS DAY!"

"Hold on, m'am.... okay, it's November 13th."

"NOVEMBER 13th! OH MY GOD! Do you realize that Lyle Lovett is playing a concert here tonight?"

"At your service, Ms Dig," she answered again. "How may I help you?"

I wonder for a moment if I've reached a recording.

"CAN YOU GET ME A TICKET TO THAT CONCERT?"

"The concierge can help you, Ms Dig. She will be in at 8:00am."

"But I'll be giving a speech at 8:00am. Can't you help me? Or can't you leave a message for her?"

"No, m'am, I'm sorry. You'll have to contact the concierge tomorrow."

I hang up, dejected, but not defeated. I write what I can now concede was a half-crazed note to the concierge, put it in a hotel envelope, and march downstairs to the deserted concierge desk where I tape it to their computer screen.

The moment I finished my speech, I went back to the now-busy concierge desk and waited my turn.

"Hi," I started when the concierge smiled my way. "I am interested in getting a ticket to the Lyle Lovett concert tonight, and wondered if you can help me. I left a note for you this morning."

"Ohhhhhh," she answered, looking at her colleague. "Yes, we got your note. Let me make a call and see what we can do." I walked away a few minutes later with a ticket being held for me at the concert hall.

Someone on Twitter had said, "You have to eat at Fressen!" and so, hours before the concert was to begin, I bundled up and started walking. First, I walked a few miles to the concert hall so I would know where it was. And then I started a long walk down Queen Street to find Fressen, a vegan restaurant. I walked and walked some more. The sun went down. It gets cold in Toronto in November when the sun goes down. I walked past a Fluevog shoe store. Well, not exactly past it. I walked in it, hoping the clerks wouldn't judge me by my practical slightly club shaped walking shoes.

I walked by a huge crowd--HUGE! and LOUD! "What's up?" I asked a young woman on the corner as the hoards shrieked a shriek such as I had never heard. She mouthed an answer, but I couldn't hear in the din. "WHAT?" "THE ACTORS FROM TWILIGHT ARE IN THERE!" she yelled. "OH, WOW!" I said back. As I turned, I realized I had no earthly idea what she was talking about.

I walked some more. Perhaps I should turn back. It's too far. How can it be this far? I won't get back in time for the concert. But on I went.

And then there it was, a small storefront, a dimly lit interior. "Reservations?" the woman asked as I entered. My heart sank. "No," I said, "but I just walked fifty miles, give or take a mile, to get here."

She seated me. I faced out, watching the sky go black and the lights go on.

It is a rare thing to read a menu and know that you can order absolutely anything on it. ANYTHING. Everything was vegan. IT WAS PARALYZING. I sat and read it for a long while. Finally I opted for soup and a few appetizers so I could experience more tastes.

As I sat in the dim light, I realized how rarely I walk a city and treat myself to a concert. I felt fully happy at that moment. I knew in that moment the beautiful difference between loneliness and solitude.

And then my soup arrived in an asymmetical bowl that reminded me of the Sydney Opera House.

It was so beautiful I drew it. (And when I find that drawing, I'll include it here).

The first spoonful? It was an aria to beautiful solitude.

#Best09

poetry wednesday : questionnaire

2009-12-02T14:13:13-05:00

Questionnaire

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

-Wendell Berry

My thanks to Nancy MacDonald for pointing me to this powerful poem.

found-art tuesday : self

2009-12-01T17:17:29-05:00

As I find these self-portraits by Tess around the house, I can't help but wonder: what would my self-portrait look like?

Would there be a happy sun like a big orange spider in the sky? A solitary flower? A smile? Smoke in curls out of a green chimney?

Trip: drive a buttercream truck

2009-12-01T12:04:44-05:00

The end of a year. A WHOLE YEAR! This one was fast. FAST.

Fast, I tell you.

Blogger Gwen Bell is hosting a challenge to recap the year in 31 days, this month of December.

I love recaps. Circles completed. Filling in those little dots on multiple-choice tests with a number two pencil. And imagine my delight when I saw that I would be the 37th person to sign up. I like the number 37. It all seemed right.

And so, for the month of December, a look back.

December 1. Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?

I travel a lot. Some months, a trip each week. Here, then in some liminal space between here and there, then there, then liminal again, and back home. Repeat.

In each trip, there are memorable moments, people who stand out for me, friends made at 37,000 feet, flights missed and adventures resulting from those misses. Sometimes I track how many people I can make laugh in airports. (Some days, that is a big challenge).

So while there are many trips—Bend, Edmonton, Deerfield, Toronto, Tybee, Chicago, and so many more—that could stand in this place as “best trip,” there are two that immediately came to mind when I read this prompt.

The first was a trip to Hastings, Nebraska, in June of 2009. The second was a series of flights to Chicago in October of 2009. I've written about the magic of those flights before. It was a big lesson about being open to the gifts we are given. About seeing gifts where only pain appears to be. A big lesson.

And so, let me write a bit about Hastings.

Work called me there. I would meet amazing people, reconnect with high school and college friends, and eat on a patio in Lincoln the best Indian food I can remember. There is much about that trip that resonated, yes.

A beautiful series of barns. Prairie Loft was the name of the place we would inhabit for two days, engaging teachers and community members in the art of learning. Playing, laughing, learning together. It was magical.

The stark white barns standing against green, green. Barns tall, barns stubby, barns with wooden stalls. A wedding had taken place in the largest of the barns the day before, magic fairy lights still hung in the rafters where barn swallows dove and lit.

Our barn was open, a rug on the floor to cover the dust, with folding chairs in a circle around it. A long table covered in flowers and beautiful old quilts on one side. Gorgeous vegan food would appear from the simple kitchen made by Lisa and Megan, kitchen goddesses and the hosts of our time there. One morning, we arrived to find them in aprons making homemade pancakes on hotplates in the barn for everyone.

In every group, there is a wisdom that emerges. Sometimes, when the conditions are right—say, when you are in an open gorgeous barn with blue skies and barn swallows swooping past every once in a while and when your belly is full of homemade pancakes cooked in the open air on a small hotplate and covered with jelly somebody canned in their kitchen on the prairie, then there is more wisdom than usual, full rich and filling the crisp air. This was such a time.

And in every group, there are people who speak truth to power and big things can happen. And people who jump in not knowing and not needing to know. And people who sit and resist and finally join. And people for whom the meaning is much, much bigger than what is actually happening in the room. Or barn, for that matter.

And so, David and I love this work of unfolding a space for people to wander around in, find meaning in, explore, get hot and messy in, and build relationship in.

The afternoon of our first day, I realized that the old 1940s gorgeously refurbished truck in the parking lot belonged to a man named Jack, someone I had immediately been drawn to in the group.

“Jack,” I said to him at the break. “That your truck?” “Yep,” he said. “It is. Chevy.”

“You think I might stand up on the sideboard runner thing after the session and have somebody take my picture on it?” “Better,” he said. “I’ll take you for a ride in it tomorrow.”

GET OUT! I was thinking to myself. REALLY??!?!

“Thanks, Jack,” I said. “I would really love that.”

It was a truck the color of butter, all rounded at the edges.The next day, as we approached the afternoon break, Jack motioned for me to come outside with him. “Gonna do better than a ride,” he said. “You’re gonna drive.”

GET OUT! said the yelly voice in my head.

“No, Jack!” I protested. “I couldn’t! Just a ride will be great!”

“Nope,” he said, handing me the keys. “You’re gonna drive. And what’s more, you’re gonna drive by yourself.”

I can’t remember being happier or more excited than I was at that moment in that butter cream truck in that sun surrounded by those barns full of those pancakes, holding Jack’s keys in my hands. It wasn’t just the truck, though that was part of it. It wasn't just the blue sky, though that was part of it. It wasn't just those white barns, though that was part of it. It wasn't just the pancakes, though that was part of it, too.

It was that this man entrusted something he clearly loved to a stranger.

I took off down the driveway of the Prairie Loft with country music playing on the radio in the truck, little round dials on the tiny dashboard. The windshield was two tiny panes of glass. I turned on the wipers just to see them work, each coming from the outside of their respective pane to sweep over the tiny expanse of window down and then back out again.

I turned left out of the driveway onto a dirt road, beeped the beepy horn and waved back to Jack, still watching me go.

Suddenly I was on a long road in sunlight driving down a straight, straight stretch of land surrounded by green corn on either side of it, under a blue sky. Sitting up high in that seat with my hands on the steering wheel, I cried because it was all so, so beautiful. '

(Written to Foy Vance’s album, “Hope”)

#Best09