Taunting God

The church next door posts clever messages on the board out front every week or two, enticing people to come to church and strengthen their commitment to their faith. Today, the message read something like, "If you continue to use my name in vain, I will make your rush-hour commute even longer." I said out loud, laughingly, "God doesn't have the power to do that." Then I clasped my hand over my mouth and gasped a little, afraid that God had heard me doubt those powers and would decide to show me just how wrong I was.

I'm not a religious person. My belief in a higher power consists mostly of a sense of something much much larger than myself. "God" is the somewhat-tangible version of that, which I usually conjure up only when I'm feeling helpless and like to think that someone else out there has a hand in what happens in this world. It keeps me from feeling utterly alone. My rational brain says that "God" is what we make up to explain the things we otherwise can't explain, but my metaphysical brains says, "What if God really can affect even silly things like commutes? What if God can mess with us?" Since we can't know for sure, at least not in this life, I prefer not to take any chances. I'm sorry, God, for doubting you. For taking your name in vain. My rush-hour commute may be quick and easy these days, but there's plenty else in my life to mess with. Please don't. Thank you.

I get one every year

If I'm lucky. I'm talking about my birthday, which is today. I've reached the age where I avoid answering the question, "How old are you now?" because I'm still incredulous that I am this age. From now on, I will answer with the age I feel, rather than the actual number of years I've been on this planet. So today, I am 26.

In any case, it's been a great birthday. Last night I went to the Morcheeba concert at the 9:30 Club with two friends. It was a good show, but I guess I'm so used to high-energy shows that a band with a more chill vibe just doesn't make the cut. They put on a great show though. In my next life, I want to be a bad-ass black woman with a fro-hawk and buff arms, like Skye.  

Today, I went to the Baltimore aquarium and had lunch at a local cafe down the street. It was a sunny, not-too-cold day - really, one can't ask for much more on a February day north of the tropics. Last year it snowed a bajillion inches and the year before, it was 70 degrees and super windy. Today's weather was pleasant, unobtrusive. What a birthday should be. And I spent it in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, in the Amazon rainforest, and in Australia. Very cool. The night ended with some tasty Ethiopian food with a few friends. When they sang the happy birthday song to me in the small, crowded restaurant, the bartender turned down the traditional music/CNN playing on the speakers and instead blasted a recording of the happy birthday song. I'm sure my face was bright red. Tomorrow, I will be partying it up with some other friends in Annapolis. Every year, I swear that I will celebrate on one day only, dammit, but it still turns into a multi-day affair anyway. I'm okay with that.

The bigger news this year was Egypt's liberation following the stepping down of 30-year president Hosni Mubarak. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't follow current events in that country because I figured they were one of the more progressive Middle Eastern countries and were therefore not a cause for concern. In any case, it's wonderful to hear that the Egyptian people have been heard, and I hope that the transition to a better and freer country is peaceful. It is worrisome that other countries like Iran are clamping down on their citizens in order to prevent the same thing from happening there. In other words, don't get your hopes up about the rest of the region following Egypt's lead. This may be the relative calm before the storm.

Freedom

Yesterday, I took my ten-dollar Groupon and headed over to the Newseum. And thank goodness for the Groupon, because in a town full of free museums, I wouldn't pay the $21.95 plus tax it normally costs to go otherwise. The Newseum is run by a non-profit organization, so I can see why they need to charge something for admission, but I find something wrong with the fact that a museum celebrating one of our basic freedoms costs so much to get into. Apparently the Newseum costs a ton for upkeep, so maybe they should work on reducing those costs so that they can reduce the cost to visitors.

Enough ranting. The Newseum is a really cool place. I already had a strong appreciation for journalism, thanks to my fine undergraduate journalism education, but I think the museum packs so much history and culture in that even the most curmudgeonly, anti-media person would find something there to appreciate. The admission ticket is good for two consecutive days, and it would really take that much time to really read and watch all of the content. It gives you a different perspective of the current events that have impacted our lives - I remember how I felt as a regular citizen during 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but seeing how the media reported on what was happening was fascinating. For example, have you ever thought about how newspapers in New Orleans continued reporting and publishing without electricity, or even offices? They figured out a way to pick up and move the whole shop so that they could at least publish an online version. They managed to resume printing a dead-trees version within days (or a couple weeks) after the hurricane. The stories of reporters from both of those tragic events are so moving, and their perspectives make you think about them in ways you hadn't considered as a news consumer.

Here's a dilemma for you to ponder. Say you're a reporter, and you're covering some tragedy. It's your job to provide an objective report of what's happening in front of you. You know that stopping to help people will insert you into the story and keep you from reporting objectively. But these people need help. We're all human after all, and it's possible that no one else will come by later to help them. What do you do? The 9/11 and Katrina stories and the gallery of incredibly moving Pulitzer prize-winning photographs show how journalists dealt with that dilemma, sometimes with good outcomes and sometimes with lasting regret. 

Thankfully the Newseum isn't just about the tragedies; it also showcases the history of journalism in the U.S. and around the world and celebrates pop culture in the media as well (see: the Elvis exhibit). Martin Sheen tells the history of the freedom of the press in the U.S. (That man was born to be the voice of American history, wasn't he? I would believe anything he told me.) A giant map on the wall shows the levels of freedom the press enjoys in each country around the world. Guess what: the press in most countries are either partially free or not free. We may despise the things that people in the media say or do in this country, but the freedom to say or do those things is rare and precious. Just as we are free to say what we wish, we are also free to not listen to things we don't like or don't agree with - something that we should exercise more than we do.

Speaking of which, do you know the 5 basic freedoms in the U.S.? Most people can name freedom of speech and freedom of religion - do you know the other three?

Aural memories

I'm trying to recreate the music mixes that carried me through workouts past
I should have written them down
I should have backed them up
But I didn't
and now they're lost on an old iPod
recycled
gone.
So I create new playlists
dredge my memories
wrack my brain
trying to remember the songs that were connected
in what order.
But some songs appeared more than once
so I connect them to memories
like treadmill running and elliptical trudging at my old gym
or the 8K I ran through the streets of Chicago.
But that was many years ago
Many playlists ago
So I do my best. Maybe new memories will jog old ones
or maybe the songs will re-mingle and I'll have new connections to re-remember
when I have to start all over again.

Blow my mind

I have discovered the WNYC Radiolab podcasts. There have been other podcasts that have caught my attention for weeks on end, like WUNC's The Story, as well as everyone's favorites, This American Life, Science Friday, and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. They're fun and entertaining, but eventually I grew weary  of listening to people's tragic stories, Science Friday can be a little dry sometimes, and WWDTM's formulaic format gets old after a while. I still love This American Life, but it only plays once a week. Radiolab provides hours of entertainment and about subjects that I never gave much thought to. Jad and Robert dive deep into every subject they cover, wandering on tangents that are only loosely related to each other, incorporating sounds and ideas that round out each story. This isn't just people talking, this is a sonic journey. And it blows my mind.

Last week, I woke up early and went to the gym before work. At 6am, I hopped on the bus in the cold darkness and listened to the podcast that came out a full year ago about animal minds. As I walked four blocks from the bus stop to the gym, I listened to the hosts and guests tell the story of how a group of divers cut fishing nets away to free a trapped blue whale off the coast of San Francisco, and I teared up as they described how she swam up to each diver to thank him for helping her. It was amazing and moving, and the rest of the hour-long story was just as smart and moving.

Yesterday, I listened to the podcast about words while I walked to work under a vanilla sky, and as Jad and Robert talked to various people about language and about how acquiring language changes how we think and live, I realized that I was beginning to think about my world in a different way. This is not just about seeing something in a different light or learning something new. Radiolab creates a new world for me. I find myself utterly fascinated by ideas that never even occurred to me before.

Seriously, check it out. Go to the website and watch the videos and check out the extras. You won't be disappointed.

Ahoy, matey!

January 1st is a good marker for people to use to start anew, but without the concept of a calendar system, it's really just another day that happens to occur soon after the winter solstice. Life is cyclical, so lucky us, we get lots of opportunities to start over. Even so, leaving 2010 behind feels good. I can't help but think that 2011 will be so much better, and not only because my birthday this year falls on 2-11-2011, a nice neat number. I bought a Salvador Dali wall calendar for my bedroom and a calendar of tall ships for my office. I've been thinking about Dali a lot lately after having a few weird dreams set in landscapes that would make any Surrealist painter proud, so glancing at his artwork every day feels fitting. The calendar was made by a European company, so the week starts with Monday, not Sunday. It also denotes the holidays for a number of other countries, including Japan. Turns out that my birthday falls on Japan's National Foundation Day. As for the tall ships, I wanted something totally random to hang in my office cave, and I like tall ships, with all of their masts and sails.

It seems like every year, I spend time thinking about what I'm going to do in the coming year, how I'm going to improve myself, which interests I'm going to dive into. But not this year. I'm not making any resolutions or goals. This year, I don't care. At all. And that makes me very happy.
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Today was a neat day at the zoo. I got to watch the rainbow boas being fed. They each get a dead rat that has been frozen, thawed, and warmed slightly. Not so exciting for us humans, but when the keeper wiggles it around a little, the boa (which eats only every few months) snatches it up, coils tightly around it, and slowly gulps it down through its long body. After a holiday season full of hearty food and a little too much beer, eating like a snake sounds about right these days.

After my shift, I wandered up to check out the lion cubs, who were all outside with their mothers on this cool, damp day. Good God, are they cute. Whoa. Serious kryptonite. Combine the curiosity of kittens with the rambunctiousness of puppies and the exotic draw of the African bush and you get seven African lion cubs in a park in the middle of a big city. Sorry, panda-lovers, these guys are way cuter than Tai Chan. Whoa.

Breakfast on the bus

This December morning is magical.
The thick yellow sun, heavy like a runny yolk, rises above the buildings
poked by the bare branches
spraying light up to the puffs of clouds.
The trees grow woody nodes where their leaves once hung, protecting them from the cold wind
that shuffles leaves and litter and snow along the sidewalks.
There's peace here, buried among the coats and mittens and holiday madness
like the feeling of toast and eggs, sunny-side up
getting a start on a quiet day.

Life is a bowl of...roasted vegetables?!

I've been thinking about a conversation that my cousin and I had a few weeks ago, about people who feel "called" to do something good - people who believe that they are "special" and will somehow change the world. Some of those people will become Tom of Tom's Shoes, or Bill Gates, or the Cousteaus. But most of those people will, at some point, be forced to accept the fact that This Is All There Is. That the next big thing, which they believe they will create, is not just around the corner. That life is just a bunch of trials and errors made on a treadmill that get us mostly nowhere. Those of my generation might be tempted to partially blame the movie "Dead Poets Society" and its mantras of seizing the day and letting loose a mighty yawp for inspiring such a (delusional?) can-do attitude. What, then, of rumors about how the boomer generation, so idealistic in the '60s and '70s, sold out for a pension and a station wagon? Are dreams of changing the world just delusions to get us through our youth, and does maturity mean accepting that we're never going to be a star?

What a thought. Is that true? Do we all reach some point at which we must admit that our loftiest of goals are just dreams that keep us moving? Or do those who succeed do so because they possess some innate quality, and that if we dig deep and find that special quality within us, we too can make a real difference? Or perhaps, a third option: maybe not all changes come in the same size. Maybe even small wins can change the world. Maybe we must accept that our lives are exactly what they look like, and not what we dream they should be, but that doesn't preclude us from doing something good anyway. A recent study found that people who daydream are less happy than people who are focused on the present. But if we don't dream, do we have any chance of getting what we really want?

A quote from this morning's tea: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think." -- Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (often attributed to French essayist Jean de La Bruyère)

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I made roasted cauliflower again today. If life was just roasted cauliflower, I would be okay with that. Well, that and leftover pizza...

Pierced

How can two holes make you feel whole? And yet, they have. My ears were first pierced when I was very young; I don't remember a time when I couldn't wear earrings to make me feel like a girl, to embellish my dress or stand out in a crowd. I don't remember the punching of the second holes, but after a time, I let them close up in the middle, a visible hole without an exit. This year, I punched them through again, first with diamonds, then with birds that look like whales. I contemplated a third set but couldn't get up the nerve at the mall to face the gun. Lately, I dreamed of holes in odd places, and when I woke, I couldn't imagine not having them. So yesterday I went for it. I walked into a tattoo parlor, paid my fee, and let a heavily tattooed, earlobe-stretched man stick needles in my lobes and fill the gap between the birds that look like whales and the cartilage fold with blue gem-topped stainless steel studs. They were sore last night; today they feel fine. Twenty-four hours later, I can barely remember a time without them.

November Prairie

I went to Chicago this weekend to visit my family. I didn't go to the place I grew up, nor to the place I lived for three years, nor to my mom's first apartment, which felt like home the minute I walked into it, nor even my mom's condo, which no one lives in right now. Instead, I went to the house in the suburbs that my mom's boyfriend bought. She lives there now. To many of my friends, going to visit their parents is "going home". To me, it's just going to visit my family. Home is where I live.

Chicago may not be home anymore, but it's still the place that wraps around me like an old familiar blanket every time. On this typical November weekend, it was warm one day, then rainy and grey, then chilly with a bitter wind. When the sky wasn't grey, it was bright blue, the yellow sun low in the sky, on a long angle to the land. The sad, bare trees were a shock compared to the mostly green with orange tinge here in the Mid-Atlantic; all I ever remember of Chicago are the leafless trees, the grey sky, the blasting wind. Summer doesn't seem real; Chicago in my mind is perpetually November.

My mom lives down the street from a forest preserve. Despite the chilly air, we walked the dog along the paved path that winds around a lake and passes through wooded areas and tallgrass prairie. Geese and gulls flock to the lake, but we didn't see many other birds. Since my family moved to the city, I haven't spent much time in the suburbs, and for the first time ever, I recognized the forest preserve as part of the native landscape. Before humans took over, the woods and the prairie, like the ones in this preserve, spanned the land, and now I felt a closeness to it that I hadn't felt before. I heard it whisper its secrets, sigh its November sigh, and hunker down for the winter. 

Turning point

Okay, so it's been a rough year. Things didn't go our way, and we've been a brat about it. A breakup, a missed job opportunity, internal turmoil over a milestone, troubled mind over troubled times, those things are small. They leave small wounds that heal quickly, and they'll likely return in other forms in the future. They are not a lost job, a bankruptcy, a serious illness or injury, the death of a loved one, homelessness, natural disasters, a mugging. Those are all things that people around us have experienced in the past year. Those are things that leave lasting marks.

We are fortunate, after all. We have homes, jobs (some of us), our health, and people to lean on. If some of those things are not to our liking, some day, they will be. Or not. But if we have them at all, we are lucky. So no more whining. No more mulling over said difficulties. Life is just life, and as long as we open our eyes each day, life will keep going. Tragedies will occur. If we are lucky, they will not happen to us.

Give it a try

I like cauliflower well enough. I'll eat it anytime it appears in a dish or on a veggie tray or in a California-style mix of frozen vegetables. But I haven't made much of a conscious effort to cook with it. Unlike its cruciferous cousin broccoli, it just doesn't excite me. But recently someone (I don't remember who) wrote that anyone who doesn't like cauliflower should try it roasted - it will change how they think about the vegetable. So I gave it a shot. I bought a large, solid head of cauliflower, cut it up into medium-sized florets, drizzled it with canola oil and a healthy sprinkling of garam masala, and roasted it in a 350 degree oven for...a while. Maybe 30 minutes? Until it gained that roasted brown color and a few edges started to look burned. I ate it with homemade red lentil/split yellow pea curry and brown rice. Twice. Tonight, I just finished off the remainder of the cauliflower, cold, right from the fridge. And let me tell you, the person who recommended roasting cauliflower was right. It changed my world. The cauliflower itself became sweet and tender and velvety in the oven, and the sweetness of the garam masala, which contains cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom (among other spices) gave it more depth and richness. Roasted cauliflower will definitely be a go-to for future Indian dishes, and I'll have to try it with other spices as well. Maybe spicy, with zucchini, corn, and black beans in quesadillas? Layered in a lasagna? Pureed like mashed potatoes? Do you have any favorite cauliflower recipes you can recommend?

Color me inspired.

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Sanity restored

Yes, I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear yesterday. It was great. Everyone was polite and fun and friendly. It was basically a live, three-hour Daily Show/Colbert Report Variety Show. Which is exactly what I figured it would be. I never expected this rally to be anything but entertainment. Everyone who pontificated on the meaning of the rally before it happened and thought it would either hit the mark or be a disaster clearly has not watched Stewart and Colbert in action. Or they just don't get it. Either way, yesterday was hours of entertainment, with a not-so-subtle message that politicians and the media reinforce stereotypes and play on our deepest, darkest, irrational fears to acquire and maintain our attention. I thought Jon Stewart's closing address went on just a smidge too long and came off as a little too preachy, but I appreciate and agree with his sentiment. Like many other aspects of modern society, we have latched onto new technology and new process that gives us ever greater access to all of the information and opinion we could ever want, but we didn't stop along the way to figure out how to use it for good and not evil. Like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, we got so excited about what we created that we didn't build in a function to control it. I don't think politicians are bad, and I don't think that people in the media are bad. I think that our collective ADD has gotten the better of us, and lacking the time or mental agility to process every bit and bite that comes our way, we let the shortest and flashiest pieces capture our attention. To change that, we have to come at it from all directions, make a concerted attempt to alter the way we operate in many different aspects of life.

Jon Stewart's intention for the rally was to say, "I think that all this extremism, perpetuated by both the media and our governmental leaders, is destroying our country, and I want that to change", and to show that there is a critical mass of people in this country who agree with that statement. As Stewart said yesterday, "If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me.  Your presence was what I wanted.  Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder.  To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine.  Thank you." Stewart's message wasn't one of any political or religious persuasion, but rather an attempt to recognize the dark path we've wandered down and turn us back in the other direction, toward something that presents the better in all of us, not the worst. That he did it through humor makes it all the more genius.

It's been too long...

...since I been out West. In the mountains. Among the mule deer and magpies. Where the wind blows between craggy snow-capped rocks and waves the tall grass below an unremitting sky. It's this West where I found myself, met by the Front Range around every corner, pulled down a long road and humbled by the grandest rock temples in Utah, bowled over by brown rolling hills and bubbling mud pots in Montana, beckoned by a nightly loon in Wyoming. I've been to many places where the birds and the squirrels, the flowers and the trees, the sun and the moon have captivated me, left me breathless and sobbing, but only in the West do sorrow and joy feel futile. There, one can stand in a spot away from the roads and neither see nor hear a trace of human presence. Were it not for the clothes on my body and the pack on my back, I would not know when in time I stood in that place. It may as well have been thousands of years in the past, or perhaps many eons ahead. It matters not what I feel for those places, because they do what they have always done, and they will continue doing so long after I am gone. My presence in that place counts for nothing besides the blades of grass my feet have bent down and the warmed air that has been expelled from my lungs. Standing in the open, exposed to the blue sky and the dry wind, I discovered the bold outline of my self, without any tree or building to blur the edges. And when I left that place, a part of me stayed behind, waiting to be reclaimed some day.

That's what the West does. It leaves you aching for more, just a piece to hold, to remember. But like an unrequited love, the sky and the open land don't care about you. They don't need you. They do what they do, and you just get in the way. It's a reminder that we are nothing, we are part of the Earth, we are but one more speck that will pass by this plot in the continuum of time. And still we try to save the Earth, to save ourselves indeed.

New project

Remember how I said a while ago that I was going to try to use my writing skillz more? Well, it turns out that my editing skillz may be more valuable, and I've found a way to put them to good use. Back at the end of August, I saw a post on the High Country News employment page about a start-up nonprofit organization looking for writers, editors, and photographers to contribute to a webzine (or e-zine, as they called it) that covers issues relating to biodiversity and culture. I contacted them and committed to editing a couple of pieces that they were getting ready to post. Then they realized that I could really edit, not just for grammar and spelling, but for style, content, and structure as well, so I got bumped up to Senior Editor and have received mucho kudos for my skillz (which clearly I am not exhibiting in this post, but whatever). The same thing happened back in high school, when I joined the student newspaper and they made me an editor after the first issue. That's when I decided to go to journalism school. Because as it turns out, no matter what else I may be interested in or enjoy doing, working with words is what I do best. And I love the challenge of molding an article into a piece that's clearly written, compelling, and informative, while maintaining the writer's voice and style. That's what I'm doing for this new organization, and I'm interacting with some fascinating people in the process. Go to www.izilwane.org to see what some interesting and talented people are working to protect these days.

I don't mean to get a big head about my craft. I don't want to sound like I think I'm some Big Shot just because I know the difference between "its" and "it's" and whether to spell out a number or use a numeral. I'm not trying to brag. It's just that, in counting up everything I have attempted over my thirty years, I realized that I have failed at a lot. That fact is something I just recently came to terms with. I feel like a big fat loser in my current job - in my current life, really - so being reminded that I'm good at something has saved my soul. I can't do algebra or calculus, I don't know much about economics or agricultural practices, I can't run a mile in less than ten minutes or ski or draw or raise a lot of money, but I can work with words, dammit! I'm learning a great deal about wildlife conservation that I couldn't get from a university course, so working with Izilwane is supplementing my education as well. And who knows, maybe it'll lead to a cool new adventure.

Making a mockery of Congress

On Friday, Stephen Colbert testified in a House Judiciary Sub-Committee hearing on Protecting America's Harvest. Arturo Rodriguez, President of the United Farmworkers Union, had appeared on The Colbert Report to talk about the union's new campaign, Take Our Jobs, to increase awareness of how hard farmworkers work to pick, package, and ship our country's fruits, vegetables, eggs, and meat, as well as the plight of the many immigrants who come here legally and illegally to do these hard jobs. People complain that these immigrants take jobs away from Americans, so the union's campaign encourages people to at least try to do these kinds of difficult jobs. As Colbert proved on his show Thursday night, during which he showed a clip of him working on a New York farm, immigrants are not taking these jobs from most Americans. Most people do not want to work on a farm. It's really hard work, for very little money (most farms are, in fact, not profitable), and it has to be done year-round in all kinds of weather. The number of farms in this country has been steadily decreasing, as have farm income and the number of operators for which farming is their primary occupation. (See some stats here and here.)

Colbert appeared in front of the subcommittee committee in character, although he submitted a more serious written testimony for the record (go here and click on Colbert's name to view his written testimony). (For the record, most people, including government officials, often submit a written testimony that is different from the one they present, mostly because they only have a few minutes to present.) He was awkward, annoying, rude, and opinionated, just like he is on his show. Some people didn't get it. Others thought he was making a mockery of Congress. To those people, I say: Have you seen Congress lately? They don't need a TV personality to make them look foolish - they do a fine job on their own. Plenty of celebrities testify on the Hill, but we generally don't hear about them or the causes they're supporting unless we read the Washington Post celebritologists or pay close attention to the causes they support. Colbert made a fool of himself on purpose because he knew that would draw attention to the issue. Toward the end of the hearing, he was asked why he was interested in the issue.


"I like talking about people who don't have any power," he said. "It seems like the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come here. . . . And at the same time, we invite them here and ask them to leave. . . . I don't want to take anyone's hardship away from them [but] migrant workers suffer and have no rights."

Let's hope this is not the last we hear of this important issue.

For the record, I thought he was hilarious. I don't know how the people in that room kept a straight face.

Fall Melancholy

For some people, the deep dark winter is the saddest time of year. For me, autumn is the most melancholy of seasons. Already, the angle of the sun is lower. Mid-morning is the day just getting its bearings, not the searingly hot magnifying glass of a day that is already many hours in. The evening hours feel a little more urgent as we lose sunlight the quickest of any time of the year. It may still be hot, but there's a sense that the joyousness of summer will soon end. I have a feeling that this autumn may be even more melancholy, because it marks the end of a summer I didn't really get a chance to appreciate. It was just too hot, and this year has been just too hard. I've been looking forward to fall with the hopes that it would bring cooler temperatures and a sense of peace, but with the coolness this weekend came a yearning for hot, but less humid, weather. A yearning for what summer should have been.

The one aspect of autumn that I do enjoy is the beginning of a chance to start anew. I'm not religious, but I've always loved Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, because it signals a time of reflection that lasts through the Gregorian New Year (January 1st) and on to my birthday in February. Perhaps it seems odd that Rosh Hashanah is actually a solemn holiday, but I get it. You can't start anew until you mourn for the mistakes you've made, regret that you didn't spend more time with the people you love, didn't do enough of the things that fill your heart with joy. You can't do better until you know what you've done wrong. This year I'll have some extra time for that - Rosh Hashanah starts sundown on September 8th, which is earlier than usual. It's been a really rough year. Boy am I ready to start anew.

January, February, and March are difficult for me because I'm readying myself for the brighter days ahead that take too long to get here, but it's October and November that pull at my heart. The waning daylight, the rain and the wind, the coolness of the air, make me want to crawl into bed and pull a sweater over my head. Maybe this year will be different. I'll use my slow cooker more. Play outside more. Spend quality time with friends more. Get an early start on beginning anew.

Abandoned

Earlier this year, my mother moved out of her condo in the city and into a house in the suburbs. From photos, it seems like a lovely home, in a lovely area, and she was able to put in a pond and a garden, like the one we used to have when we were all a family. She's much happier now, but her home is not close to either of the train lines that transmit people around the metropolitan area, so when I visit, I will either have to stay with friends in the city and somehow schlep out to see her, or stay with her in the burbs and schlep into the city somehow.

After this weekend, my brother and sister-in-law are moving from the same city in which my mother lives to a city on the other side of the lake. They will have better jobs, a cute house, a cozy life, but if I want to see them, I have to fly into another city and schlep a few hours by car to their fair home.

Next week, my father is moving all the way across the country. When I moved home from college, I lived with him for 8 months. When I went to grad school, I lived just two hours away. For the past 18 months, he has lived just a few hours by car from me. My visit this weekend to celebrate his 60th birthday will be the last time I can visit any of my family members without having to get on an airplane and endure a long schlep.

My family has been scattered for years. I went to college, then my brother went to college. I moved home from college and my mother moved out of the house. I moved up to the city and my father moved to the South. I moved to the South and my brother moved to the city where I once lived. I moved a couple states north, then my father moved a couple states north of me. Now, three of us have moved yet again. The four of us are different-colored juggling balls, and the hands that catch us keep repositioning. But I'm the one who's been trying for 18 months to move from here, and now I'm the only one who doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Very soon, they'll all be so very far from me, the one who tries the hardest to maintain relationships with everyone else. They all have significant others, companions with whom they share their lives and their homes. I am 30, and I have a roommate and a cat and an apartment that leaks.

What a dismantling year it has been.

Write on

I work in an office where a lot of economic analysis is done by people with very advanced degrees. I spend most of my time reading and writing god-awful technical papers about economic opportunities and trade-offs and production practices and blah blah blah. My technical writing is terrible. I think the only reason they hired me was because they thought I could write (I certainly can’t do statistics very well!), but pretty much everything I’ve written for them has been edited and rewritten until I don’t recognize it anymore. It has made me forget that I am a writer. It has made me dislike writing.

But recently, I’ve received kudos from a couple of people for my non-economics writing. I’m tempted to blow off my mother’s compliments, because whose mother doesn’t love everything they do, but her comments were more than just “you’re a good writer”. She complimented my style in a your-blog-post-reminded-me-again-that-you’re-a-good-writer kind of way. Anyway, it meant something to me. Then, my professor thanked me for writing an exemplary research paper and asked if he could use it as an example for future classes, and it reminded me of other professors who made similar remarks, including my eighth-grade English teacher whose recommendation to become a journalist sent me on the path I eventually took. Maybe some of those comments were offered following exasperation at the lack of writing ability my classmates have exhibited. Some people are just really bad writers; I certainly have no right to judge them, because I am horrible at math in the same way that some people absolutely mangle full paragraphs. But I’ll acknowledge that perhaps I have a way with words, and I definitely enjoyed writing all of those papers.

So I take back some of the harsh words I’ve said to myself recently about how I followed my English teacher’s advice to become a writer, the seemingly easy way forward, rather than push myself to become a scientist, just because no one ever told me I was good at biology. The fact is that I love both writing and science. Even though the only science I currently write about is informative but boring as hell due to the style requirements of the reports I write, I feel connected to the science writing community. I don’t have to give up on writing just because I’m trying to become a scientist. Rachel Carson was a journalist and a writer, and even though she didn’t have a PhD, her work spurred on the eventual ban on domestic use of DDT and led to other environmental research and activism in this country. She was just the first of a really long list of people who have found ways to effectively communicate with the masses on scientific topics. For evidence, head to the blogosphere and marvel at the vast array of sites where scientists write about the latest news and research in their field. Then take to Twitter and Facebook and watch scientists and non-scientists alike share those ideas with everyone they know (or don’t know).

I kick myself often for getting a degree in journalism instead of biology. (What I should kick myself for is not taking enough science classes in college.) But that’s the past, and now I’m taking science classes, so it’s all good. The point of all my rambling is that my goal from day one has been to make a difference in this world. I avoided jobs in journalism because I thought that being an environmental scientist or a policy maker would have a bigger impact. I think I still have that bias, but I’m realizing that with all of the ways to communicate that didn’t exist eight years ago when I finished college, it doesn’t have to be either/or. The combination of the ClimateGate discussion, the global climate change dialogue overall, and working with a bunch of mathematicians has made me realize that we really need more people who have a science background and can effectively communicate information of a scientific nature to people without any scientific training at all. I don’t know that I can dedicate my life to sitting in front of a computer typing articles and reports - I’d rather be in the field restoring wildlife habitat or otherwise making place-based natural resource management decisions - but I promise to put my communication skills to good use in this blog and in other ways that educate people about the natural world and inspire them to protect the plants, animals, soil, water, and air on this rock we call home.