More like Yogi Bear

If you were to ask my friends what stereotype I best fit, I think the most popular answer would be treehugger/greenie.  I’m a vegetarian.  I don’t have a car.  Walking is my favorite form of transportation.  I prefer tea over coffee.  I subscribe to Vegetarian Times.  I bring my own bags when I go grocery shopping.  Since my apartment building doesn’t recycle paper, I amass a large stack of papers, junk mail, magazines and catalogs, and then talk a walk over to a nearby school that has a paper recycling receptacle.

But because I don’t like to be a walking stereotype, I was quite proud of one way I failed to fulfill the treehugger mold: I didn’t practice yoga.  When I used to have a Wii and TV at my disposal–that is, when I lived with someone with those things–I did do the yoga component  of Wii Fit as part of my workout, but I didn’t think of it as “real.”  Besides, I didn’t have an actual yoga mat.

Yoga is everywhere.  I know several people in different parts of the country who are yoga instructors.  A grad school friend of mine may or may not be writing about her experience with yoga as part of her manuscript.  I see people carrying rolled up yoga mats all the time.  There’s a yoga studio around the corner from my apartment–I’ve even seen mothers and toddlers going in together.  You can even buy yoga products at Barnes & Noble.

I’m sure you can see where this is going:

Yes, that’s mine.  It’s not from Barnes & Noble–it’s from Amazon, which isn’t saying much.

Why cave in now?  I’ve always been high-strung.  Grad school hasn’t been the gentlest experience for me, with faculty issues, a flare-up of my writerly insecurities, getting adjusted to new surroundings, and relationship troubles.  I cried a lot my first year.  This first semester of my second year has involved less tears, but I’m still not serene.  For one thing, my mind won’t shut up when it’s time for bed.  And I suppose I still cry more than the “normal” person.

“Have you tried therapy?” my professor asked me a few weeks ago, after I had begun crying in her office.

“Do you meditate?” she inquired later in the same conversation.

Another one of my professors is also into meditation, and even led us in meditation exercises in the course I took with her. Even though she held most of our classes off campus–many of them at the Phipps Conservatory, which I love–I found it incredibly difficult to let go of the thoughts running through my head.  New thoughts would pop up.  Was I breathing right?  Inhale, belly expand–Crap!  I’m thinking!

The closest I have been to a meditative state, I think, is when I walk long stretches in quiet areas, areas preferably with trees.  That’s why I enjoy the trails that cut through Schenley Park.  The dropping temperatures and waning daylight hours in Western Pennsylvania this time of year, however, prevent me from doing this as much as I like.  I needed an indoor activity that allowed me to move my body but was low-impact.

Gyms and fitness classes make me terribly self-conscious.  All the women who pile in and out of Schoolhouse Yoga, the yoga studio near me, look svelte and dressed in all the right yoga workout clothing.  Since yoga’s been trendy for several years now, are there actually any classes for people who are total beginners?  No, I’d rather not feel dumpy and foolish next to these other women.

Netflix has a Watch Instantly option, which allows members to stream select movies and other videos on their computers.  I find this feature incredibly useful when I’m still waiting for my next DVD to arrive in the mail, especially since I don’t have a TV.  I was browsing one evening and realized the Instant section had a Sports & Fitness category; there, I found Crunch: Candlelight Yoga.  The user reviews raved about how this video was good for de-stressing, how people did it before bed and slept better as a result.

I’d give it a shot.

The 44-minute video is a little cheesy, with the occasional background noises of birds and wind chimes and the amplified sound of breathing.  But Sara Ivanhoe, the instructor, has a soothing voice–and I appreciated her comparing deep breathing to making a Darth Vader-like sound at the back of your throat (yeah, I’m a nerd).  She also stresses that it’s okay if you can’t stretch out all the way in poses and that you should only go as far as is comfortable for you, which was assuring for me because I’m not a flexible person at all.  I did find myself concentrating more on my breathing and thinking less as I continued through the series of movements, all of which Ivanhoe explains well.

After the video, I washed up and went to bed.  While I didn’t fall asleep right away–I never do–it seemed like I tossed and turned less, and I didn’t keep rolling over to squint at the digits on my alarm clock.  The next thing I remembered was opening my eyes and realizing that it was the next morning.

In the waning days of the fall semester, I’ve been pretty consistent in rolling out my yoga mat and streaming the Candlelight Yoga video before bed.  Am I now awesome at yoga?  Definitely not.  I don’t think I’ll ever be a yogi–I have a better chance of becoming like Yogi Bear.  I still loathe the Downward-Facing Dog pose and I’m sure many of my other poses aren’t quite correct in form.  But I’m trying not to bring my sense of perfectionism into yoga–it pervades too much of my life already.

When I leave Pittsburgh for the holidays in less than a week, I won’t be bringing my mat with me.  Hopefully, I won’t need an outlet for stress relief as I take a break from school and see family and some friends.  I expect I’ll pull out the yoga mat again, however, when spring semester classes begin in early January.

 

A Pittsburgh shower

I attended my first bridal shower–a shower in honor of a very soon-to-be-married friend–this weekend.  While I’ve gone to weddings before, I’ve always attended them with family and not as an individual, and I’ve never been to a shower before.  (I was once invited to a baby shower of a boyfriend’s friend’s wife and hadn’t known it until my boyfriend told me he had declined my invitation for me.  My not attending was probably for the best, however, as I didn’t know the mother-to-be well, lived in a different state, and definitely wouldn’t know the majority of the guests.  I was also twenty and pretty baby-ambivalent.  Then again, I may still be the latter).

In her collection I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Sloane Crosley has an essay, “You on A Stick,” about her surprise when a long-lost friend asks her to be a bridesmaid and her struggles to fulfill that role properly.  (I imagine that I would also be a crappy bridesmaid.  I’ve considered my list of female friends, however, and determined that the ones most likely to invite me to their weddings have other friends who they’ll probably ask to be in their bridal parties before me.  Since I didn’t grow up with any sisters and am not close to female cousins, I think I’ve dodged a bullet–the bullet being bridesmaid duties.  Or at the very least, maid of honor duties).  Naturally, “You on a Stick” has a scene of the bridal shower.  Sloane, who has unwittingly become maid of honor, has to be informed that it’s her job to make the ribbon hat for the bride-to-be; she had no idea that this was expected of her.  It is not a fun time for our narrator.

“Well, it’ll give you something to blog about,” another friend said.

I had some hope that this would not be like the shower depicted in “You on a Stick.”  The guest of honor and her fiance are having a very small, 26-person event at her family’s cabin in Michigan, not a big, full-blown affair.  She didn’t even know there was going to be a Pittsburgh-based bridal shower for her; her fiance coordinated the surprise with one of her closest local friends, who hosted the event.

Everyone arrived before the guest of honor, bearing food or wine.  Bride-to-be was under the impression that she was coming over for some wine just with the hostess and another friend, and texted the hostess when she was on her way.  We huddled in the living room when the doorbell rang, and waited for bride-to-be and hostess to come up the steps to the third-floor apartment.  One guest taped a video of the guest of honor’s face as she looked into the living room, and was greeted with a chorus of “Surprise!” then “She’s going to the chapel, she’s going to get ma-ah-rried…”

After partaking in food, we played Telephone Pictionary, which involved writing a sentence, passing it to the next person who would illustrate it, and who would pass it onto the next person, but fold over the paper so that only the picture was showing, and the third person would write a sentence describing what she saw in the picture, and the next person would illustrate the previous person’s sentence and… you get the idea.  Or maybe not, as that is very much a run-on sentence.  (Writing tutor moment of shame here).  There were some gifts and cards to be opened, admired and passed around, but, fortunately, no one had to make or wear a ribbon hat.  The shower guests had questions for the bride-to-be about the upcoming wedding (Dress?  Songs?), but this seemed less stereotypically girly and more natural curiosity, as most of us will not be able to attend the actual wedding.

The bride-to-be talked about how her fiance–who only moved to Pittsburgh a few months ago–has come to know and like her friends here and feels protective of us.  The shower hostess then looked at me and added, “Yeah, he told me to make sure you got a ride home tonight, that you were taking the bus here.”  I remembered how earlier in the week I had gone to the coffee shop where he works, and he had asked if I had transportation to the get-together.  At the shower, I turned red, flattered and incredibly touched that a person I had only known for a few months was looking out for me.

“Blessed” isn’t a word in my regular vocabulary.  In fact, I associate it with the soon-to-be married couple, as I think of it as a very Christian word, and they are strong in their Christian faith.  I’m not a religious person.  But I think I, too, am blessed, to possess the friends that I have.  This isn’t the first time someone has said that he or she feels protective of me, and I’ve wondered what it is about me that makes people feel this way.  (I’m not a small girl.  I don’t think I look that young.  I’d like to think that I don’t come across as incompetent or irresponsible).  Maybe I just find good people to befriend.

I assume that this won’t be the last shower I’ll attend, that this is just the beginning.  Maybe I won’t be able to dodge all bullets and will experience a bridal shower as wretched as the one in “You on a Stick.”  But that can wait.  (And wait, and wait, and wait, if it were up to me completely).

 

The Ivory Neverland

Imagine if Peter Pan had Facebook and could stalk friends from his pre-Neverland days, friends who, unlike him, grew up.  Wouldn’t he see what he was missing by staying young?  Wouldn’t he feel left behind?  Jealous, even?

I am Peter Pan, and academia is my Neverland.

Being behind the curve is a foreign concept in the two decades or so of my life.  According to the growth chart in the doctor’s office–with its cartoon hippo wallpaper–I was always taller (and heavier) than the average child my age. I was one of the first among my friends to have a boyfriend (though this perhaps was not for the best).  Advanced classes and honors classes, scholarships.

From the first day of nursery school to college graduation, the path one ought to take is pretty straightforward.  Study, do your homework, get good grades.  But what happens after you take off that mortarboard is more open-ended.  Do you go to graduate school or get a job or be a do-gooder and join the Peace Corps or Teach for America?  I felt lost within a month after graduation.  By the end of that summer, I decided the way to get back on track was to go to grad school.  I was good at being a student.  It was better to go to school now; it’d be harder to go back to school later.

None of my friends took a year off like I did before returning to school; they either went directly from undergrad to grad school or they settled into grown-up jobs.  Maybe I should have seen this as a sign.  But, instead, it’s only recently hit me that my friends are growing up without me.  There are engagements and cars and houses and Masters degrees already received (and other higher degrees pending).  And I’m becoming more and more dubious about what I will have to show for myself in my three year-hiatus from the real world, if what I have will be of any value outside of the Ivory Tower (or even within).

Telling myself, “You’re twenty-four.  You’re only twenty-four,” doesn’t comfort me.  I’m lucky not to have a family who nags me about getting married and popping out children.  When I began grad school, I knew that Big Adult Things, like an engagement and all that jazz, wouldn’t happen while I was studying, but I figured they would happen not too long after I finished.  Now I question whether all that will happen at all, ever, as I buy engagement cards for several friends.  I think about getting a cat (though no offers now, please).

In some ways, I hate that I buy into conventions.  Why can’t I aspire to journey to far-off countries, to build houses in Africa, or farm in New Zealand?  My tastes are just more prosaic.  I’d be happy with trying a new restaurant as an adventure–with someone.  Try as I might, I can’t shake off that desire to have a partner-in-crime.

I was finishing a glass of water one afternoon and gulped too much too quickly–it went down the wrong pipe.  As I hacked and hacked, I thought: what if this was it?  How long would it be until someone found me?  The first time people would note my absence was the next time I had to work, which was days away.  It was silly, as I turned out to be fine, but disconcerting.

Recently a professor hosted an informal discussion about the writing life and life as an editor.  The 50 to 60 hour work weeks he described didn’t appeal to me, and my lack of enthusiasm worried me.  If I don’t want that life or a continued stay in Neverland as an academic, what am I doing here in grad school?  Is it worth it to be in school just to nurse this one story I’ve got in me, and not for professional development?  Is it a waste if I receive this degree and do something totally unrelated and if I don’t keep a published presence out there?  What am I left with if I don’t embrace the writing life, especially considering the things–the people–I left behind and may have possibly lost to pursue it?

I swear, my next post will not be doom and gloom.  (For both your viewing pleasure and for my writing pleasure).

 

Thanksgiving crasher

This was my first orphan Thanksgiving*.  I use the term “orphan” loosely–my family is alive and well (thank you).  I suppose I could have ponied up the money for airfare, but traveling this weekend is a bitch, and I’d argue that it’s especially painful traveling to and from the nation’s biggest city.  I gave up traveling to New York for Thanksgiving after my first two years of college, but I don’t consider the Thanksgivings after that and prior to this year orphan Thanksgivings because I spent them with company who I thought of as family even if it wasn’t by blood.  Alas, this could not be the case for Thanksgiving 2009.

Pros to Orphan Thanksgiving: Not having to make my apartment presentable (cleaning up the explosion of books and papers), not having to cook a multi-course meal, getting work done (?).

Cons: I like cooking.  I’m also good at procrastinating even when left to my own devices.  Something else I’m awesome at when alone is thinking (and feeling) too much.

Up until a week before Thanksgiving, I planned on a solo holiday.  No dining companions?  Eff it.  I was going to bake a pumpkin pie anyway.  MINE, ALL MINE.  (One post-Thanksgiving, I got upset with my brother for eating the last piece of pumpkin pie.  That is how much I love it).  By chance, I ran into a friend on my way to work one morning and asked her what she was doing for Thanksgiving, assuming she was going out of town.  Instead, I stumbled into pre-established Thanksgiving plans.

Like Pauly Shore’s character in the movie  Son in Law, I crashed a Thanksgiving.  Only I’m less outlandish and less charming, and am not posing as someone’s significant other.  But invite me to an event, and I shall bring food.  A pan of cornbread and a plastic container of black eyed pea salad accompanied me on the two buses I took.  (Much to my surprise, a number of students got off at Carnegie Mellon, another local university here, and looked as if they were going to do work, with laptops and backpacks.  I appeared to be the only one on my way to festivities with my telltale square cake pan).

The other attendees of the gathering were aforementioned friend, friend’s fiance, and friends of my friend, most of whom I had met previously but didn’t know well.  Two of my friend’s friends hosted the meal at their home, along with their charming baby daughter and dog.  Everyone but me attends the same church, and I didn’t always understand the context behind conversations, though they were all extremely welcoming.  With them, I experienced two new Thanksgiving traditions: saying grace in English–though I’ve sat through prayer in Chinese pre-dinner with extended family–and going around the table and naming one thing for which we were thankful.  I’ve seen all this stuff in movies and on TV, but that’s all.

True to the spirit of the holiday, there was plenty of food.  Bruschetta, stuffed portabella mushroom caps, mashed potatoes, broccoli gratin, orzo and butternut squash, salad, homemade cranberry sauce–bacon-wrapped turkey legs for the omnivores–and my contributions.  My favorite part of communal dining, other than the deliciousness of food, is that contented silence as everyone savors the meal.  Dessert–pumpkin pie, apple pie, cherry delight, vanilla ice cream topped with more cranberry sauce–followed a game of Apples to Apples.

I do miss Thanksgivings of the recent past, terribly.  Butbutbut–what can I say that is pithy and not trite?  All I can say is that I get by, some days better than others, and today was one of the better days.

I still baked a pumpkin pie for myself.  Haven’t cut into it yet, but give me a night’s sleep and I’ll be on it tomorrow.

* Credit for the term “Orphan Thanksgiving” goes to Adri.

 

Bad story

I’m conflicted.  As a reader for the English graduate student-run journal, Hot Metal Bridge, I groan to myself when I begin reading a submission and realize it’s another one of those pieces about a writer writing about writing.  You don’t need to tell me how writing is hard.  This is hypocritical, considering (a) my last blog post was about writing and (b) how much I love Margo Rabb’s short story  “How to Tell A Story”.  In fact, I’ve quoted from that story before on this blog.  The protagonist of the story and I share one key thing in common: we’re both students in creative writing programs.  It seems that every few months I come back to this story, and find new lines with which to identify.  Currently, the lines that call out to me are:

It’s not the Alice Harden Prize I’ve got any chance of getting, but the Weeping Prize, The Girl Who’s Cried Most in the English Department. I walk the six long, sun-cooked blocks to my apartment, trying to gather myself back together.

Change the name of the graduate student writing prize and substitute “the mile-long wooded trail through Schenley Park” for “six long, sun-cooked blocks,” and that’s me.

And I was so proud of not crying as much this semester over school-related things as I had last year.

Perhaps you’ve glanced at the story to see why the protagonist was crying.  If not, I’ll save you the trouble: her workshop instructor informs her that he doesn’t think she has what it takes to be a writer.  No, this did not happen to me. (If it has happened, it’s happened in the past and not recently, and was implicit rather than explicit, but so implicit that I don’t think it’s happened).

Huh?  So, then, what happened?

“You look sad, why?” and ”Do you want to tell me if something’s been bothering you recently?” are questions that you probably expect to overhear at a therapist’s office, not from the open doorway of a professor’s office.  But that’s how a conversation with one of my professors derailed.  And of course, this is a professor who I like so very much.  As personable and as warm as my professor is, she is a writer, an Artist–I was too embarrassed to mention specific, mundane things.  It would be like serving Kool-Aid to the Queen of England.  I find it difficult enough articulating my feelings to my friends, whom I also like but for whom I don’t feel awe (sorry, Friends).

After I bumbled an answer that was only partly the answer and tore a paper towel from the roll she offered me, my professor said, ”If I didn’t think you were a good writer–well, now I feel bad saying this–I’d feel sorry for you going through all this pain for nothing.  But I think you can take all of these feelings and write about them, and it’ll be good.”

I would have loved to stop crying, perk up, agree upon a date when I should give her some of my writing, bid her a cheery goodbye, and left.  I had planned on going to a visiting professor’s lecture following our meeting, anyway.  Instead I cried more.  (Reason #8 I’d Make a Bad Teacher: I wouldn’t know what to say if a student started crying.  I might start crying, too.  Or, in fact, I’d probably cry more than my students).  My professor said more comforting things, nodded, and then added, “Being a writer is tough.”

But, wait, if someone said that in a story, I’d hate the story.  If I were a character in a story, would I as a reader hate my character for crying because I live a fairly privileged lifestyle in the Ivory Tower?  As an arts student, no less?  Probably.

It all looks bad.  The other professor I nearly collided into on my way out of the office wing–he probably prescribed my red puffy eyes to my failed attempts at grade-grubbing or getting an extension.  Then there was the doubtful tone in the voice of the classmate I passed in the stairwell when she said, “I’ll take your word for it,” after I said I was okay.  And I don’t know how my professor will fill in the gaps in the story–oddly enough, she was on her way to see her therapist.  Then there were the strangers I walked by as I exited the building–going to the lecture was out of the question now–the people I passed on the sidewalk and then on the Schenley Park trail.  Even my version of the story–the one I’ll let myself believe–makes me think, “Dude, what the hell?”

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