Book Review: Committed

*A quick disclaimer before I begin: I love Elizabeth Gilbert.  I love her the way that people tend to love their favorites: unconditionally, irrationally, beyond concrete specifics or reasoning.  Therefore, I cannot write anything critical about her.  I just can’t.  So although I am positive there are things about this book that could’ve been executed better, I didn’t see those and I won’t be commenting on them.  This is not a critical book review; this is a fan explaining their overwhelming love for an author.
 
Now that we’re all on the same page, on to the review:

I must start this by saying exactly why it is that I love Elizabeth Gilbert so irrationally.  Although I referenced this growing attraction when I read Eat, Pray, Love (henceforth referred to as E,P,L) last year, my love and understanding of the reasons for that love has grown exponentially since then and requires further explanation.

I love her because she reminds me of my undergraduate college.  My college, which I also hold intensely passionate and unreasonable admiration for, was the kind of place where you would often find yourself engaged in intense, amazingly stimulating conversation with people who are astoundingly intelligent, well spoken, articulate, creative and passionate.  These conversations, due to the nature of the parties involved, were meandering and varied, covering a large number of vaguely related topics and often lasted for hours- sometimes split up over several consecutive meetings.  And I loved them with the kind of fierce, soul-defining passion that can permanently alter a person.

Reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s books- thus far- has been like having those conversations.  It’s sitting down in a peacefully lit, sunny little coffee house and talking to a friend whose intelligence and understanding absolutely floors you.  And why does it floor you?  Because in the midst of all that intelligence and passion there is a distinct lack of the qualities that unfortunately tend to come packaged with those: condescension, patronization, haughtiness or arrogance. 

This is not a woman who is educating you, lecturing you or in any other way talking down to you.  This is a dear old friend who is not only brilliant but also warm, comforting and welcoming.  It’s someone who you’ve known for years and who still overwhelms you with such a flood of positive emotion every time you see them that you can’t understand why you don’t see them more often save for the fact that they’re always working or traveling or taking care of their family or keeping up with their bounty of activities or just, you know, living life.  But every time you see them you’re reminded that they are one of the absolutely coolest people you know and you can’t help but thank god that they’re your friend.

My dear friend Vanessa whom I’ve just had a soul-nursing weekend with falls into this category as well, by the way.  And I was discussing this book with her while she was here.  And it was sandwiched in one of those conversations I was talking about.  So I’m not just reminiscing about college here.

So by now you will have already correctly assumed that I loved this book.  I loved it in my typical "I’ve highlighted so many passages and sentences and ideas that there’s not a single non-yellowed page in this damned thing" sort-of way.  I love it in the “that’s exactly what I said!” sort-of way that I experienced so many times with E,P,L.  I love it in the “thank you so much for addressing that- I was afraid you were going to leave it out for a second” kind-of way that she does so well.  I love it in the “how do you do that?  How do you sum up something so profound so eloquently?” sort of way.  I love it in the way that makes me feel compelled to become a college professor on marriage and family just so I can assign this book.

It occurs to me that I should probably make a quick note about what the hell the bloody thing is about, huh?  I’ll let Elizabeth Gilbert herself sum it up for you: “This entire book- every single page of it- has been an effort to search through the complex history of Western marriage until I could find some small place of comfort in there for myself.”  That sums it up better than I possibly could.

She does explore what seems like the entirety of the history of marriage and references facts from what sounds like intimidatingly large numbers of massively heavy volumes on the subject.  The critical part of me wants to read those books myself before accepting what she relays on face value, but I have no reason not to trust her and that’s not really the point anyway.  Nor is it where this book- or she- shines.

No, this book shines in the same ways that E,P,L did: in her personal stories revealing her life and the lives of the people she encounters.  The most overwhelmingly touching sections were those exploring the marriage histories of the people who had the biggest impact on her: her parents and her grandparents.  Her mother and grandmother are clearly the centerpieces of these, in her mind, and the way that she describes their choices, the sacrifices they made, and the paths they went down are hauntingly beautiful.  Honestly, her grandmother’s wine-colored coat with the real fur collar which she purchased with her own money and later on disassembled in order to make a dress for her daughter will stay with me for the rest of my life as the single greatest description of the deeply mysterious losses a woman suffers in marriage.

Which isn’t to say that she’s making the case that marriage is bad.  She admits that she wants to think that, mainly because she’s a self-proclaimed cynical divorcee being forced into a second marriage so that her Brazilian-born boyfriend will be allowed to live with her in the US.  But she somehow always manages to balance her own judgments with the realities of the lives she describes.  None of these people- not a single one of them- is used as an anecdote of a bad marriage or a good one.  All of them have their own stories and their own complex reasons for choosing the path they do.  Again I must quote her, because she says it best: “My mother herself had probably given up long ago trying to draw tidy ultimate conclusions about her own existence, having abandoned (as so many of us do, after a certain age) the luxuriously innocent fantasy that one is entitled to have unmixed feelings about one’s own life.”

I suspect that this is Gilbert’s greatest strength- the ability to see and accurately describe the world around her.  Not just flash descriptions or one-line categories.  But the beautiful and the devastating, the miraculous and mundane, the epiphanies and the mistakes- all at once, all in the same person.  I don’t think I know a single other writer who does that as well.

In the end, this book, like E,P,L before it, touched on a lot of personally significant questions for me and gave me a more comprehensive understanding of one of the most complicated milestones in human existence.  I have a lot more reading to do on the subject, and will be following some of Gilbert's recommendations for that purpose.  But without this starter guide, if you will, I don’t think I’d be as interested in studying up on it. 

In addition, after reading a second of her books and loving it so thoroughly for the writer more than the subject I am now convinced that I would be a massive idiot not to try out some of her less famous works that proceeded E,P,L.  The Last American Man is a thought-provoking title, don’t you think?

To learn more about Gilbert, click here.
To see her TED talk, one of the greatest explorations on creativity I’ve ever been exposed to, click here.
And to read my review of Eat, Pray, Love, click here.

2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge

I love Fridays.  Not just because it’s the end of the work week which, of course, is vital.  But because it marks the time when I am thoroughly reminded of how many truly amazing writers there are out there.  I have the blog roll and it reminds me, too.  But I don’t check as often as I feel like I should and Friday provides that terribly needed kick in the ass to go and read and remember.  And what I’m remembering is that reading other writers is just as important as writing.  That’s something I forget sometimes.

Like last year when I was so busy trying to meet my self-mandated blog post count that my reading list was disturbingly small.  Of all the amazing books I had sitting and waiting on my book shelf I only read… maybe five of them?  A terribly low number, considering that the whole point of all this is to get better at writing.

But thankfully, I am not alone in this.  Many other people feel like they should be reading more, and one of my fellow bloggers relayed me to a useful tool to assist with this.  I came upon it last Friday when I was trolling my blog roll for new posts and I came upon an interesting side bar over at Eric J. Krause’s Writing Spot.  Eric is a good writer and in order to become a better writer he, in his infinite wisdom, has set a challenge for himself to read more.

That challenge has a name, because another blogger I discovered thanks to Eric’s link, created it: The 2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge.  I had never run across the Book Vixen before clicking on the link in Eric’s sidebar.  But I’m glad I did because it reminded me of how vitally important that reading piece is- not just for my writing, but for my brain.

So, I am officially signing up to outdo myself.  I’m going to blow last year’s measly list of books out of the water by reading a total of 12 books this year.  Why 12 books?  Because it’s 2012.  And, more practically, because a book a month seems reasonable to expect of myself.  And because I already read one so I technically only have 11 to go.  And because I figure this blog needs more book reviews.

I actually started reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed before I finished Pride and Prejudice because I was so disgusted with the marriage obsession that I needed to read the words of someone coming from the other end of the spectrum.   But now it’s just that on my reading list, and I’m giving myself a week to finish it because of the need to outdo myself.

Thanks to The Book Vixen for creating this challenge and thanks to Eric J. Krause for linking me up with it!  And if you too would like to outdo yourself, click here or on the icon to your right.  You can sign up at any time and challenge yourself to whatever number you see fit.  Happy reading!

Dim Sum

All around them the normal chaos was erupting.  The rattling carts navigated the overcrowded tables while uniformed servers unveiled clouds of steam as they removed lids and reshuffled baskets.  The new patrons ooo’d and aaah’d as the colorful entrées were spread out before them while the veterans wielded their chopsticks like swords as they dove to get their favorite pieces before the bowls were cleared by their fellow diners.  All the smells, all the sounds, all the sights were familiar and comforting.

          But at their small table in the corner there was no comfort to be found.  They took unenthusiastic bites of their dumplings and steam rolls interspersed with sips of fragrant tea; but neither one spoke.  Jess did her best to keep her eyes busy, watching the excited baby three tables over spit rice porridge all over his bib while his mother frantically tried to keep the sticky substance in his mouth.  The site might have made her lose her appetite, but she’d do anything to keep from looking across the table at the man she was supposed to love more than anything.

“You ok?” Dan asked her through a mouth-full of spring roll.

“Sure,” she answered without looking at him.  “Just tired.”  It wasn't true, but it was before noon on a Sunday and they’d gotten up relatively early to take the train into China town so the excuse would work, probably. 

“Hey, remember this?” he said, and she finally turned to look at him. 

She watched as he tucked his chopsticks underneath his top lip and pulled up his arms up in a T-Rex fashion, arching his eyebrows at her as he made the characteristic high pitched noise.  She’d called the pose ‘the retarded dinosaur’ the first time she’d seen it and laughed far harder than the pose really warranted.  Now she only gave him a weak smile.

She remembered their first time at this place, all those years ago.  They’d come early in the morning with a crowd of drunken grad students after concluding that dim sum was the only appropriate end to what had become an all-night pub crawl.  That was the first time she’d really seen Dan outside the confines of class and she’d allowed herself to fall for him right away, with no reservations or cautionary investigation.  It’d been so unlike her, which was exactly why she thought it was right.

Observing it from the other side of her young adulthood she knew how wrong she’d been.  It wasn’t for a lack of love or passion or anything else she’d thought it was supposed to be at the time.  They’d allowed themselves to succumb to the madness characteristic of young love and developed a number of bad habits in the process.  But they stuck it out, the way she thought they were supposed to, and managed to make quite a respectful showing of the coupling over the years.

But life had changed, for both of them.  Not because of anything that either one had done wrong, but just change.  The inevitable kind that marches you forward, whether you want to go or not.  And all the revitalized bedroom techniques, screaming matches full of fiery passion, and quiet concessions made afterwards in the dim light of morning weren’t enough to undo the inevitable change that drew them apart from each other.  The everyday revolutions always led to them reorganize in ways that were just a little too different to be manageable in the long term.  It was like seeing the landscape and wondering when it had shifted- it happened too slowly for you to notice but now everything just looked different.

Now as she watched him fumble to control his chopsticks- a trait she’d once found endearing- she knew there was nothing left.  Everything had been said, everything had been done, all sentiments had been exhausted and all anger faded into the past.  She’d been playing the charade of someone still in love for a while now and even her built-in need to stay the course had faded.  Now there was nothing left but empty civility. 

“You done?” he asked her, wiping his face and setting the cloth napkin on top of his empty plate.

“Yes,” she said.  As she raised her hand to signal for the check she waited for the moment to hit her. 

She'd expected that once the moving boxes has been packed and monetary settlements has been made and all the other details had been dealt with she would feel that soul-crushing defeat, or pain at having loved and lost, or something.  But she didn't.  It was simply done.  She wondered if this was the way things always ended, ultimately.  Picking up the check and heading out.

Puppy Training

Before we got Buddy, I read Caesar Milan’s “How To Raise the Perfect Dog” and I vowed not to make the same seemingly stupid mistakes that he talked about other people making.  Fast forward a year and I’ve made most of those stupid mistakes, one of which was not getting Buddy socialized early on so as to avoid anxiety or aggression in response to other dogs.

            We were told that Buddy needed ‘puppy kindergarten’ early on to get him healthily socialized.  Like a lot of other tasks that linger on the periphery of everyday focus, we always meant to get it done but it was never at the top of our list.  We thought we had time- he’s still so young, after all.  Which is why when we finally got in touch with a dog training organization in the area and were told that Buddy was well past the proper age for puppy kindergarten we were shocked.

            We got a bit of the ol’ riot act when we sat down for our first consultation last night.  The proper age for puppy kindergarten, the lady repeated several times, is between 2 to 4 months old.  Which meant that we were about, oh, 10 to 8 months late to the party.  Because of this, she informed us, Buddy might have some trouble keeping up with the other dogs in the class we were going to put him in.  Hearing all this shrunk me down to that ‘two cents’ feeling very fast.

            But I rallied when the trainer actually started working with Buddy.  Because while we missed out on socialization, we didn’t miss training.  Buddy is a proverbial master at SIT.  And DOWN ain’t too bad, either.  He did great at a painfully easy game called “Name Recognition” simply because he knows his name and responds instantly to it.  He displayed his nature- which is to want to please- in everything he did.  This makes him very trainable and relatively easy to work with (at least in comparison to a lot of other dogs).  I was proud, I gotta say.

            Still, as we were driving home I couldn’t help but wonder aloud whether or not we were bad dog owners for having missed that so-much-smaller-than-we-thought window for socialization.

“Seriously?” was the response I got.  “He has two people who not only shelter him, feed him, and shower him with toys but also play with him, hold him and give him affection, worry and fret over him and basically do everything they can think of to try to make him happy.  This is not a neglected dog!”

Valid point.  Plus I figure, better late than never.
           Classes start next month and I'm sure that many interesting, entertaining and likely funny events will unfold.  Stay tuned.

Celebrating Dickens

Google reminded me this morning that it is Charles Dickens’ 200^th birthday today and, being a fan of his, I felt compelled to say a little something on the occasion.  I have listed Dickens as one of my favorite authors throughout various times in my life and, having several of his tomes still sitting on my shelf waiting patiently to be read I am sure that I will continue to do so.

            The reasons for this are many but the single most important, at least for me, is the characters.  Having been exposed to his writings first in school by being assigned to read A Tale of Two Cities I stood out as one of the few kids in class who actually enjoyed reading the book.  Through my teenaged passions I developed a deep love for Sydney Carton- relating to him (thanks to an abundance of teen angst) for his self hatred and revering him for his ultimate sacrifice.  I prided myself on earning one of my best grades for a project I did on him in English class.

            Then came Great Expectations and Wemmick charmed his way into my heart with his humor and steadfast separation of the seriousness and dreariness of work and the nearly magical wonders of social life (he built a moat- complete with drawbridge- around his tiny house and called it "the castle", for Christ’s sake!).  His devotion to keeping those parts of his life so firmly separated has and continues to serve as an inspiration for me in my adult life.  Then finally there’s David Copperfield who, in my mind, is the most fleshed-out and 3D character I have ever read.  (I would argue it’s easier to do this when you’re writing someone’s life story as if it were an autobiography and drawing most of it from your own personal experience but still, it’s damned well done.)

            There are a billion other things to say about Dicken’s writings, of course.  His settings are so real that I almost forgot I’ve never actually seen a 19^th century London court session and his writing is stylistically loaded with all the tricks and tools that are now textbook.  And let’s not forget that his Christmas Carol is largely responsible for the cultural behemoth we now think of as “a classic Christmas”.  But for me, the magic is in the characters who have dug themselves very deeply into my heart and remain there as old friends whom I will be devoted to long after I’ve read the final page.

            I may not be able to list in a clear and thoughtful manner all the ways in which my writing and my way of reading characters has been influenced by him but let's just assume that it's a long list.  And on this anniversary I must say that I am grateful for the birth of one of the greatest imaginations I've encountered.  Happy Birthday, Mr Dickens!

First Rehearsal

As I said earlier, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually done any acting.  There’s a lot that I’ve forgotten- mainly that it’s an art form that varies just as widely in style and form as visual art- and artists- do.  Some directors like to do acting exercises before looking at the script and have you doing touch sound or physical movement for a long while before you address the play itself.  Some directors don’t even want to look at you until you’ve learned all your lines and know the play inside out.  Some directors throw stuff at you so crazy that it might seem completely unrelated to the work of producing a play.  And there’s no way to know what you’re getting when you audition.

            Perhaps that is why as an actor I have a deeply rooted need to please the director.  I’m reading every facial expression, watching every movement, hanging on their words to try and figure out if what I’m doing is “right”.  It’s a reflex, something I don’t do consciously but which dictates almost all of my reactions in rehearsal.  And I was reminded of that tonight.

            My director seems like a pretty grounded guy so far.  We started off reading the script and last night jumped right into blocking.  Blocking, for those of you not versed in theatrical lingo, is figuring out where the actors need to stand, when they need to sit, what props they need to position themselves near and what lines they’ll be saying as they do.  So last night we walked around the fold-up chairs as if they were the sofas or tables that would eventually be there and figured out where we’d need to move throughout the scene.  We read our lines but the focus was on the physicality.

            Having only read the play once and wanting to better understand my character I was full of questions about why she was acting this way or responding by saying this and therefore had a really hard time clamping my tongue down to keep from asking him.  He did a lot of thinking- looking at us as we stood there and trying to figure out where he wanted us.  I interrupted his train of thought a few times with “Should I start from my line…?” or by starting to read again when his cogs were still turning.  He had to stop and explain that this is how he works, we’d get to the character later.  And I- in classic Bev style- was over-apologizing for interrupting the process of a man that I’ve never worked with before and therefore had no way of knowing I was interrupting.  And just like in karate, my colleagues are already teasing me about it.

            I now have a pretty good idea of where I need to go and when but my mind is buzzing with all those questions I didn’t get to ask yet.  My next task is to learn all my lines so that the next time I go in there I’m ready to tweak the delivery and actually interact with the other actors instead of looking down at my script.  The rehearsal schedule itself tells me that this process is going to pick up steam really quickly starting next month so I better get ready.  It’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

Fifth Period Gaming

“I have to break up with Mark.”

“Wait- what?  Why?”

“He rules out too many other options.”

“Ok, you’ve already lost me.”

“It’s like that game I’m always playing during free period-“

“Bejeweled?”

“No, the new one- but that one, too.  They all work the same way.  Anyway, the way it works is every time you make a match; you lose the option of another match.  Usually you lose two other options.  And the more matches you’re making, the more you’re losing till eventually there’s no more moves left and all the pieces vibrate for a second before the whole board explodes and that horrible, soul-crushing ‘Game Over’ comes on.”

“You’ve really gotta stop playing those games- they stress you out too much.” 

“I’m not giving up my games, you’re missing the point.”

“Well, clearly you’re not explaining it very well.”

“Mark!  I have to break up with him!”

“Wait, wait- let me see if I can decipher this… he’s a match and you’re losing too many other options and eventually it’s just gonna be game over on your whole social life.  Something like that, right?”

“Well it sounded way more profound in my head, but yes.”

“I’ve told you that you can read books on your phone now, right?  Or wikipedia?  Here, look at this great wikipedia app-“

“We’ve already covered that and it’s so not the point so why are you going back to it?”

“I just think that, if you’re looking for theoretical models to give you a better understanding of romance, bejeweled might not be the best one.”

“You’re so unoriginal.”

First Read Through

We did our first full read through last night where all the actors sat in a circle in our green room and did a dry read through of the whole script. It’s a rough, un-produced, baby of a play in that sense, but it’s already growing into something bigger. The words themselves, and the simple sound of the actors’ voices reading them out loud, already lends itself to fledgling characters, emotions, and revelations which will rock the audience once the final production comes out. And those are just the words.

By the time we finish there will be costumes, physicality, props, a stage that has been built and lit and interacted with as if it were a real home and all of us will have spent our time and energy making that come to life. The ‘birthing’ of a production is a very real thing in this sense; it’s based on input from different sources that will lead to the creation of a unique, one-of-a-kind production. And just like real births, the basics will be the same but the quirks, characteristics and impressions will be matchless.

I’m so enthralled by all this that I’d honestly be pleased just to a be a fly on the wall and watch this thing come to life. But knowing that I’m gonna be a part of it, that one piece of it will be mine, is just that much more astounding.

Pride and Prejudice (Final Review)

I had hoped to be writing this review with lots of new insights, observations and enthusiastic descriptions of the book. My expectations going into this were rather high, after all. It’s been labeled as one of the top 100 most loved books of all time and touted as Austen’s best novel by several friends of mine who count themselves as fans of hers. So I really wanted to love this and to be able to say that I, too, was a proud Austen fan at the end of it.
Alas, I cannot make that claim. The key points that stuck out for me are not that different at the end than they were only a few pages in.

First Point: Language. The language remained a buffer between me and an in-depth involvement with Austen’s world throughout the entire book. Whatever insecurities I may have about admitting that point it doesn’t make it any less true. And what’s more, I think I would have been able to see past all those words that required me to go back to the dictionary yet again if there had been more passages, lines or witty observations that I loved. But in the end my copy is riddled with highlighted words and written-in definitions with a shockingly small number of passages or lines that were highlighted because I thought they were great for whatever reason. For those of you who like numbers I will sum it up thus:
Number of great passages, lines or descriptions I highlighted because I liked them: 17
Number of words I highlighted because they required a dictionary look-up: 59

Now again, I am fully aware that this book is written in proper English which is shockingly different than the slang-laden, over-conjugated hybrid Americanized version of English that I speak. But in the end it did not flow the way that books I label as “great books” tend to flow. And to emphasize this I will point out that I’ve read a decent amount of Charles Dickens who also wrote in proper English and I don’t recall having that much trouble with him. I recall sitting down and reading David Copperfield for hours at a time and being captivated enough that there was actual flow to the reading. I never got that sensation with this book.

Second Point: Characters. Elizabeth is terribly witty, no one is going to argue about that. And her arc is somewhat engaging since we see her go through the various emotions one would expect a well fleshed-out character to go through: the titled prejudice, the feelings of inferiority and embarrassment, the guilt, the accompanying self-blame, the hope and counter-acting realism, and, at long-last, the love which is, of course, the entire point. But I would not put her in the same company as some other characters that I have loved over the years. I just didn’t connect with her on that level.

And the only other character who even gets a chance to be multi-dimensional is Darcy who, for all his soul-bearing letters and plot-advancing background remains relatively mysterious throughout the book. And that is simply because we’re following Elizabeth’s point-of-view most of the time. We don’t get to see what’s going on behind Darcy’s stern looks so we just don’t get the chance to connect to him.

The rest of them? While they certainly have entertaining elements, they’re all way too one-dimensional for my taste. Jane is sweet and kind without a negative word to say about anyone and remains so (save for one tiny conceding statement about the irredeemable quality of one character) till the end. Mr. Bennet never stops being a recluse who is terribly irresponsible in regards to managing his family.  Mrs. Bennet never stops being an exploitative twit.  Lydia never learns anything above superficial obsessions, nor does her new husband Wickham.  Mr. Collins never stops being the worst kind-of self-righteously judgmental asshole and Lady de Bourgh never learns to see anyone outside of the qualities assigned to them by their station. (And the other characters don’t even get enough pages to be anything other than passing names.)

And don’t get me wrong- I understand that Austen’s main point is that they don’t change, they don’t learn anything from the events of the book and therefore they don’t grow. I assume she’s demonstrating that often people we see in everyday life have the same lack-of growth. And that’s a valid point. But it doesn’t make for an interesting read.

Third Point: Austen’s quirks, I guess you would call them, as a writer are… well, rather annoying to me, to be perfectly honest. The whole not identifying the speaker thing got on my nerves like there was no tomorrow. And her habit of making the reader painfully aware of how irritating a character is for prattling on incessantly about inane topics by having them prattle on incessantly about inane topics for pages seems like a waste of ink. I will quote myself here: "Really? Like we couldn’t tell after the first paragraph? Does Lydia or Mrs. Bennet really have to keep going on for another… two pages?! Ugh!"

And this bugs me most of all: it seemed like there was almost a shift of POV sometimes. We’d be following Elizabeth’s train of thought, and then there’d be this background information that Elizabeth had absolutely no way of knowing just sort-of stuck in there with no transition whatsoever. Where did that come from? Who is actually narrating this thing? In the very last chapter there is a sentence that begins “I wish I could say” when talking about Mrs. Bennet’s appraisal. Who the hell is the ‘I’? And why haven’t they said anything before the second to last page? What is that?!? I understand third person omniscient but saying I is first person observer, isn’t it? And sure, you can change POV if you want to. But you have to do it with purpose, not just stick it in there with no warning and no stylistic meaning to demonstrate its value! That drove me crazy!

Final Point, and this is the big one: Austen’s whole world is simply one that I don’t want to be in. If I thought that a good marriage was the most important thing that could ever happen to someone in their lifetime then I might have been on the edge of my seat over Elizabeth and Darcy finally getting their heads out of their asses. But I don’t think that. I am far more interested in the challenges that people surmount and the reason they make the choices they do and the struggles involved in real growth than I am in anything having to do with marriage. And this book has none of that. It’s all very surface level proper English parlor-room tea-time discussions, no depth.

Hell, we don’t even know what these people do when they’re not having discussions about marriage. No one seems to work in this book- no one has a job, no one even has interests! I mean, we see Elizabeth reading books and playing the piano but she doesn’t seem terribly interested in either of those activities. I’m not saying that passion is the most interesting thing in the word, but it helps. And it tends to lead to desperation which is an amazing motivator that can get characters to make huge shifts that are fascinating to read. There’s way too much composure and propriety for my tastes. Too much marriage, not enough actual love.

And yes, I get that this is the world she was writing in. In Austen’s time if a woman was not able to secure a financially stable matrimony then she was, for all intensive purposes, irrevocably doomed. And I understand why Austen was so intent to make that point in her writings. But as a woman who values all the things that now exist in my life because society doesn’t function that way anymore I find that horrifically depressing to read about.

So in the end, I am not a fan of Austen. I do not like reading about the matrimonial concerns of woman in the world of the landed gentry, I do not like Austen’s writing style and I therefore do not see myself trying out Sense and Sensibility, no matter how many movies they make about it. But, I am proud of myself for having read this because if I hadn’t I would have missed this behemoth of a figure in classic literature and not known what all the fuss was about. I wouldn’t have known about all of those dislikes and I wouldn’t have known what I now know about myself. It’s a point well made that what we dislike says just as much if not more about us as what we do.  And it's good to know that from first hand experience.

Still Only Human

So I’ve been writing quite a lot about my attempts to be more zen in everyday life and how they seem to be, for the most part, working out rather well. But I have to remind myself that regardless of how many moments I have in which I could freak out like old times and don’t, I am still human. I still have moments, collections of moments comprising common measurements of time, even whole days sometimes where the old patterns still persist. I lose my temper, I lie, I do the lazy thing, I don’t do the healthy thing, I get the “fuck its” and toss the whole after-work plan. And those judgments and criticisms which are the main things I’m trying so desperately hard to rid myself of still pop up reflexively. And I don’t always dismiss them with that calm zen attitude, I feed into them and get down on myself. It still happens.

But- and this is where I have to be so conscious of the change less I miss it entirely- those collections of moments don’t usually last quite as long. I wallow in self loathing for just a little bit less time than I used to, I take action to change my mood just a little bit quicker than normal, I consciously choose not to feed into it with just a little more awareness. I must constantly remind myself that this is a life long change I’m trying to make here, not a magical moment wherein I reach Nirvana and stay there. And like all those who have gone through this personal struggle before me I have to always remember to keep my sense of humor up about it. The monks taught us that, I think. The great spiritual leaders. Not every moment can be calm and peaceful, sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself for being an asshole.

The Play's the Thing

I’ve been fascinated with theater for a long time. As a child, I indulged in daydreams about becoming a famous actress. In high school I tried out for productions in school and various community theaters. I even got cast a few times. In college I took acting, playwriting, stage design and wrote papers for my social psychology classes that bordered on dramaturgical essays. I was a regular in stage shop, learning how to use all sorts of cool power tools to build the sets and tinkering in the lighting closet to build new plugs and hang lights for shows. I even had two internships in two very different kinds of theaters, learning everything from how to make Javanese shadow puppets to how set counterweights for a fly system.

When I switched majors to psych, something I thought I could practice as an actual career in the “real world”, I largely gave up on the world of theater. But I never stopped thinking about it.

So about five, maybe six years ago I tried again. I had a string of unsuccessful auditions in local community theaters. I really gave it my all- reading whatever I could about the play, sometimes even the whole script if it was available online. And each audition went the same: I’d be so nervous I could barely speak without stumbling over my own lips and in the end I’d always be told something like “great energy” or “nice spirit” which in theater terms equates to “thanks, but no thanks”. I ended up on stage crew for a production and spent most of the time thinking I could have done one or many of the parts better if I’d been cast. (I.E. preventing myself from enjoying anything about it because of my own negative thought process.) I was so disappointed by the whole thing that I swore off theater for years, focusing instead on my karate and friends to keep me occupied.

Fast forward to last week when I got a notice about auditions being held for a local community theater. (Because I’m really bad about forgetting to cancel subscriptions to things I’m no longer actively using.) Normally I’d just send such a notice to my trash folder but I wondered if perhaps all this work I’ve been doing on self acceptance would impact how I might pursue something such as community theater. If I could audition without any expectations whatsoever of being cast, no disappointment or self criticism upon that not happening, and no other cognitive distortions to prevent me from just going and having fun with it. “Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought, “If I could just go and have fun without driving myself crazy?” So I decided to give it a shot.

The audition went far more smoothly than any other audition I’ve done in the past. My nervousness was reserved only to the few moments during which I was up reading a scene- before and after was marked by an unusual calmness on my part. And sure, I left there thinking that I’d done rather poorly and assuming that this was the reason I’d only been asked to do one reading. I even told my boyfriend when I got home that there was “not a chance in hell” of me being cast. But here's the change: I didn't beat myself up for it.  Instead of going over every little thing I thought I’d done wrong, or swearing a massive amount of negative conclusions about myself, I had a perfectly enjoyable evening at home and just let it go. That- the not torturing myself thing- is a pretty big change for me.

Perhaps that is why when I checked my e-mail this morning there was a note from the director offering me a part. Granted it’s a small part, only one scene. But that’s perfect for someone like me who hasn’t done this stuff since college. Besides, I’d left there thinking that I didn’t have 'a chance in hell'. Needless to say, I was shocked.

But then I started thinking: It’s gotta be something about this new perspective thing. I must have had more confidence cause I knew I had nothing to lose. I must have sounded like I knew what I was doing because I wasn’t running through a billion negative thoughts in my head saying that I didn’t. I must have performed it differently than I would have if I was listening to that same old negative voice burying me under an avalanche of criticisms. Something must have been different.

I didn’t make up a list of goals this year like I have in the past.  This is partly because I’m trying so hard to release all expectations on my life.  But it's also partly because if this all works the way I hope it will, I won’t be able to plan for everything that will happen. I certainly hadn’t planned on auditioning in order to somehow break into community theater. And yet, when I let go of wanting that so badly, that’s exactly what happened. I have to believe that this is how it’s supposed to work. Cause it feels really good to think so.

The Power of Perspective

When I was younger… every problem was a crisis. My body would become a prison, out of my control and reacting to the chaos. Things were, in a manner of speaking, always the end of the world. And no one could possibly know what I was going through.

Now I am learning… life transpires and I continue. My breath is always there and I can master the beat of my heart if I focus on it. Tomorrow always comes, no matter what happened today. Problems are ordinary, insignificant and surmountable- most of the time. And even if crises occur, I know I’m not the first person to move through this particular hic-up, nor will I be the last. And I remain connected.

When I was younger… I held myself to such strict standards, disregarding that which did not match my narrow worldview, criticized myself and others for not living life according to plan and was confused as to why I could not follow the small, blind path I set out for myself.

Now I am learning… to allow myself space to be without doing, feel without thinking, observe without judging. To welcome new perspectives and recognize how singular and unique my own human experience is, and how vastly different others are. There is no plan other than to live and my path is unknown, but my eyes are open.

When I was younger… I was full of passion and fire, ideals and expectations, fears and doubts, criticisms and judgments. I knew everything and could not be taught. The world was a place to conquer and control. People were categorized, filed and assumed.

Now I am learning… To be forever full of wonder and awe, thoughts and simple clues, faith and comfort, welcoming and openness. I know nothing, but have gained so much perspective. The world is a place to be a part of and nothing but gratitude is an appropriate response. People, even those I know best, are new and different everyday.

When I was younger… the world was cold, harsh and full of dangers and traumas. Life became a series of let downs and disillusionments. I had to be on guard, protect myself. Experience was a cruel teacher.

Now I am learning… the world is a place of wonderment, if I look at it the right way. There is beauty and joy, even in the darkest corners of life. I become just a little more graceful with each breath and the best is still to come. I must be open, teachable, grateful. Experience rewards me richly with understanding and wisdom.

When I was younger… life was beautiful… if I was standing on top of a mountain, or looking out at a tropical sunset, or viewing the vista of rooftops in Florence, or feeling the ocean spray on my face as waves crashed violently into the shore, or standing in a silent forest.

Now I am learning… life is beautiful during the quiet, ordinary moments. Sitting in the terribly familiar space of my own room. Or snuggling in bed on a Saturday morning, curled up against the one I love. Or having a conversation with a friend during my lunch break.

And I am so grateful.

Pride and Prejudice: First Thoughts

So I’m only 20 chapters in and already there are a few things that I just have to comment on.  Since I am still so early on, the bulk of this will not pertain to the story but rather to the first things that struck me about this classic book. 

1) The language is NOT what I’m used to.  It’s not quite Shakespeare- I don’t need an English lit teacher to decipher every line, but there’s a lot in common with Shakespeare.  First off, there are quite a lot of words that simply don’t exist in modern vocabulary anymore.  Shew is used instead of show as in “a women had better shew more affection than she feels” and "chuse" is used instead of "choose".  And they sometimes sound like Yoda.  “Are not you…?”  “Will not he…?”  I’m sure it was common place at the time, but it trips me up a little as I’m reading.  Secondly, there are a lot of references to things that I’ve never heard of- like ragout (a heavily spiced stew) or loo and piquet (card games).  These fit perfectly well with the story but require me to keep a wikipedia page open whenever I’m reading.  Not that I couldn’t guess by the context and be close, but my curiosity dictates that I know just what it is, not approximately.  Thirdly, and this I hate admitting, but there are simply quite a large number of words I just don’t know because my vocabulary is sadly limited.  I have been looking up the definition for at least one word per page.  Indolent. Panegyric. Laconic.  Iniquitous.  These words do not exist in my daily vocabulary and without my dictionary next to me I’d be perpetually lost in a sea of near understanding.  All in all, I hate to admit, it kind of takes me out of the story.

2) The conversations are a little hard to follow.  Not because of all those words I’m not familiar with, but because Austen is not a fan of ending sentences with “Elizabeth said” or “Mr Collins remarked” or in any other way denoting the speaker.  Which, in a conversation between two people, alone in a room, is not a big deal.  But in a conversation of four people, or five or six in which two were talking when a third piped in and then was interrupted by a fourth who was making an offhand comment from their conversation with a fifth it gets a little hard to follow.  Luckily, the characters are strong enough that you can usually tell who’s speaking by the third or fourth scene with them, so I suppose it’s not the end of the world.

3) There are some timeless universals which, I believe, are what make the book so beloved despite the somewhat dated language.  The embarrassment one feels when one’s mother is speaking overzealously in front of one’s friends, or worse- the object of one’s affection.  The efforts one puts into sounding smart or witty or well-educated when presenting oneself to a new group of people.  The intricacies of a specific family: the pecking order, the comic relief, the pontificating one, the stupid one, the secret (or not so secret) favorite.  The near-death feeling of having decidedly put one’s foot very far down one’s throat in front of someone one hates.  All of these come through brilliantly clear in Austen’s writing and make me feel silly for being at all annoyed by all those obsolete words I trip over.

4) The English parlor room must have been a truly magical place.  From what I can tell, every manor of repute had one and it was the place where every major thing that ever occurred in a manor took place.  Quiet evenings spent reading books by the fire, card games where stately men squabbled over politics, tea parties where women discussed the merit of a proposed marriage and meetings of the two proposed that determined whether or not the all-important proposal would come about.  It could be calm and comforting or a battle field strewn with the corpses of civilized conversations.  Having never been in an English manor I can’t imagine what having one of these magical places inside of one’s own home must have been like, but it seems like it would have been the source of endless excitement.

5) Literary professors and English scholars who know a hell of a lot more about classic literature have already written countless essays on this so I’ll keep my point brief by simply agreeing that the first line of the book is one of the best first lines of any book ever.  “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”  Bam!  The entire world, described in one single sentence.  The name of the game is marriage.  And every single person is playing that game, whether they want to or not.  If they’re not actively moving around the pieces on the game board they are being positioned by those playing.  I’m not sure I’ve encountered something so simply yet beautifully summed up so quickly.

 As I said, these are simply my first thoughts.  I’m sure I will have many others to share as I wade deeper into this pool of matrimonial monopoly.

NaNoReMo 2012

A few days ago, I was reading my friend John’s blog and found an entry on National Novel Reading Month.  How red did I turn when reading this, for I have never even heard of NaNoReMo before John pointed it out to me.  Well, I did a little investigating and, according to all the sites I could find with a title of National Novel Reading Month, I’m actually already two weeks behind.  Ugh!  I discover something I didn’t even know existed and already I’m late on a dead line?  Well, that is far too much pressure for the very first day of a year in which my every goal comes under the umbrella of acceptance, so I’m tossing the rules of NaNoReMo as they are written and simplifying things for myself- no four novels in four weeks and no trying to cram two into the two remaining weeks until January 15^th.  Nah, I’m just gonna go the simple route and read a novel.

John has suggested looking over one’s bookshelf for a classic- something highly recommended by many that you bought because it was on sale or was given to you by a friend which you always meant to read but somehow never quite got around to.  Well, I took a look at my bookshelf and what should I find but one that John himself was contemplating reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I picked it up and thought “Wait- I’ve already read this, haven’t I?”

I have seen many different film versions of Pride and Prejudice (like, at least three).  I’ve heard references to it in so many different forms of media that I can’t even list them all.  The names of the main love interests- Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy- are so familiar to me that I list them among other characters too well known to forget.  And yet, what should I discover when I open that first page that there’s nothing- not a dog ear, not an underlined passage, not even a crease in the spine- that indicates that I’ve ever actually read the thing.

Needless to say, I was appalled.  How on earth could I claim to be a lover of the written word when I’ve never even read what is arguably the best-known novel from one of the best-known authors?  I’m so ashamed I feel I cannot go on one more day without repairing this horrific mistake.  So I’m going to read Pride and Prejudice.  And, of course, blog about it. Stay tuned.

Big, Fun and Scary 2012

I’ve written quite a lot about my self critical nature and how negatively it affects everything I do.  How it leads to negative self appraisal and subsequent feelings of depression, how it affects my view of my place in the world, how it leads me to judge all of my accomplishments as not good enough and especially how it affects not only my writing itself but the entire process therein.   I’ve also written about the moments that have occurred wherein I was able to rise above that critical voice and actually fully inhabit whatever activity I was engaged in.  There have been many of those moments this past year and they’ve led me to believe that I am, if I choose to be, in transition to becoming something other than what I have been.

Which is why I am setting one single goal for myself this coming year: to accept.  To accept myself as I am without thinking about what I should be.  To accept my life as it is without bemoaning the lack of things or events I think I’m supposed to have or experience.  To accept my activities as they are and not invalidate them as not enough.  To fully inhabit myself and my life without constantly comparing everything to something else.  Acceptance.  The kind of deeply fulfilling feeling one gets from knowing- in one's soul- that they are exactly what and where they're supposed to be without any qualifiers or caveats.  That is my goal.

Now, they say that you’re less likely to achieve your goals if you don’t set any for yourself so you may be wondering how this emphasis on acceptance will lead me to accomplish any of my goals in the coming year.  Well, I’ll tell you.  Accepting myself will, I hope and believe, lead me to write not out of guilt but out of an honest desire to write.  It will lead me to begin editing my novel with an appreciation for all the intricacies of editing rather than a bulldozer-like desire to rid my manuscript of everything I judge to be wrong with it.  It will lead me to read more due to an honest love of the written word rather than a sense of obligation.  It will lead me to teach myself how to paint without looking at all the brilliant artists out there who are so much more talented than I am and finding my fledgling attempts lacking.  It will lead me to pursue my own personal goals in martial arts without judging myself against those more limber, stronger, or faster than I.  It will lead me to investigate the world I live in without constantly marking my progress- or perceived lack thereof- against some ridiculous benchmark that has absolutely no bearing on my life, anyway.  Acceptance will blanket every facet of my existence and lead me to think and do differently.  Better, hopefully.  But most certainty differently.

And that’s why there’s only one goal- cause it’s a mighty big one.  My work on this and my progress following will be frequent topics of exploration here in my writing so hopefully there will be evidence beyond my own internal thought process to further validate this goal and its effect on everything I do.  I hope that any readers who may come by to read these topics of discussion will find them to be worthwhile.  But even if not, this is my personal goal for my life- it matters more to me than anyone else.  But I will say that my understanding of this whole self-discovery thing leads me to believe that it will have a much larger ripple effect than I can see from here.

Happy New Year.