Life as List

I'm 30 now. My birthday was last week and I've now officially crossed over to the other side. (Is it wrong to say that I miss my twenties?)

As I mentioned before, I've been seeing this as the start of something new. The first day of the rest of my life. What do I want to do with the rest of this life? I've been thinking it over for the last couple months, and have come up with a list. It is not a comprehensive list, and it's pretty much limited to tangible accomplishments - no "be a good person", or "live life to the fullest." Maybe I'll add things someday, and maybe I'll decide to take some things off. We'll see. 

In no particular order then:

1. Do a round-the-world type trip. 4 month minimum.

2. Learn to knit.

3. Learn to sew.

4. Become fluent in German.

5. Visit every single country in Europe.

6. Volunteer somewhere, and become honest-to-goodness involved with the organization. Long term.

7. Re-learn to play the piano.

8. Learn about wine.

9. Make spirituality and the greater examination a central part of my life.

10. Become an excellent cook and baker.

11. Live abroad again - a few years. Preferably Germany, to make use of the German.

12. Get something published. An essay, an article. Doesn't need to be anything big.

13. Tell a story / read something I've written to an audience.

14. Go SCUBA diving.

15. Go on an extended hike - two weeks or more (periodic breaks in small towns allowed).

16. Become well read in philosophy.

17. Become well read in religion.

18. Spend time in an isolated cottage on a rugged seashore somewhere (Newfoundland? Maine? Ireland? Greece?)

19. Be an extra in a tv show or movie.

20. Become a runner. I've been dancing around it forever now.

21. Raise my children to be bilingual.

22. Win a small battle for the environment. Take my concerns beyond my own actions - try to make a small change for the rest of the world.

Preparation

The big 3-0. It's in two weeks. I'm not particularly upset or worried about it, but it has been on my mind a lot lately. Much more than a birthday (and my golden birthday at that! ...Do people care about golden birthdays?), it feels like the start of something new. Maybe it's because I've just finished school and am looking down a looooong strech of road called "the rest of my career". Maybe it's because I've been thinking about the next big phases of life - the personal ones. Whatever the reason, I've got "30" on the brain and it's tied up with all these thoughts of the way I want to live my life and the things I want to do.

I'll write more about those things later... tonight I'm thinking more about the person I've been these last 29 years, 11 months and two weeks. Good mixed with bad, mistakes mixed with good choices, etc. Many of my actions have been guided by a few different ideas, and I recently realized that I've never written them down. So... yeah. I'm going to write them down.

1. No man is better than any other
I love this. I think I heard it first said by a Norwegian cross-country skier (Vegard Ulvang, you fox!), and it has stuck with me ever since. There are people on this earth who are smarter, more attractive, more charismatic, and nicer than me... but they're not any better. In turn, I'm no better than anyone else, no matter how sexy and brilliant I may be (3 snaps in a Z formation!). There's no reason for me to ever be arrogant then. There's also no reason to be insecure.

2. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing
Full disclosure: I hated this Helen Keller quote when I first read it. Nothing? How dare you say someone's life is nothing. I learned to read it without being defensive though, and now think it's a great way to live. When I see the adventure in the little details of my quotidian life, I'm much happier. And when I look at my overall life as an adventure, I tend to take more chances, try new things.

3. Listen to yourself
Or myself. I've always felt that there is a voice of clarity inside me, and if I can just ignore all the rest of the noise (what I think will impress people, what I think I'm supposed to want, what would be easier) I can figure out exactly what is the right thing to do. I'll make the right decisions and I'll make them for the right reasons. I just have to sit very still and listen.

I'm actually sitting very still right now. And I'm listening. The inner voice, it's telling me to have a snack and go to bed. But wait, there's more... It's also telling me to watch some internet TV. Oh voice. You've never led me astray.

Past, Present (Future Perfect?)

When Oliver and I moved to this area last year, I more or less hung up my running shoes. Not that I’ve ever been a serious, dedicated runner, but I had been averaging two to three times a week at the office gym, and even did a nice 5K at one point. Leaving Toronto meant leaving my free gym, and no gym meant no treadmill. And that’s a deal breaker, ladies.

I really want to get back into running, though. Badly enough apparently, to break away from the comfort of the treadmill. I've started running through Liberty State Park, Jersey City's waterfront park right across from Lower Manhattan and next to Ellis Island.

It's a beautiful run, really. Manhattan skyline, Statue of Liberty in the distance, Ellis Island. My favorite part though, is the part that's least known. I run past the Central New Jersey Railroad Terminal, which is where all immigrants from Ellis Island came to catch the trains to wherever it was they were going. Some of my own great grandparents caught trains here to Michigan. The building itself has been preserved, but the tracks have long since been ripped out and there's this beautifully eerie effect of weeds and grass growing wild where train tracks once sat. You can really feel the past mixing with the present, and it always gives me a little tingle to contrast my own situation with my ancestors'. Would they be proud of their family today? Would they feel they had made the right decision in selling the reindeer herd and coming here? I like to think so.

Running past it the other night, I wished I could bump into my great grandfather. It would be neat to thank him, talk to him... something.


A: Great Grandpa! You don't know me, but I'm your great granddaughter. Allison. Listen, I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for coming here, for giving up everything and taking a chance on America. It'll take a little time, but your family will thrive here. We owe that to you.

GG: (in Finnish) Who the hell are you? What language are you speaking? Is that English?

A: (to crowd) Does anyone here speak both Finnish and English? I really need to speak with this man; I have something important to say to him.

GG: (pointing at my tank top and running shorts with disgust) And what are you, some sort of harlot? Put on some decent clothes! If you were my daughter, I'd horsewhip you.

A: Hey, are you criticizing my clothes? They're perfectly appropriate for the time I live in. I actually dress pretty conservatively.

GG: (Stands silently and looks away, hoping I will leave)

A: Listen, you're going to have a daughter named Ida. She's my grandmother. She'll have 5 sons and they'll have children... Great Grandpa, we make it. We all make it. We do really well, actually. A lot of us will go to college, have good, stable jobs. In fact, do you want to come see my apartment? (motion for him to follow) It's really nice. It has running water, electricity...

GG: Will someone get this prostitute away from me?

A: (being led away) You don't understand! I'm your descendant! I'm from the future!

Aaaaaand scene.

Some More Thoughts on Age(ing)

In this past Sunday's New York Times Book Review, there was a passage in a review of Diana Athill's memoir Somewhere Near the End that really struck me:

"In one of her extraordinary essays, "The Space Crone," Ursula Le Guin wrote that old women would make the best space explorers. Free from the daily tasks of rearing helpless children, free to see and comprehend without vanity, loving life because we know we may have to leave it soon, we would embark on our journey to the stars not for ego or planting flags but only for the information to transmit back to our grandchildren for their future explorations. We know by then that we are part of the flow of life."

I can't wait to be an old woman.

Really, I think I mean it. Maybe all the self doubt, the competition and vanity will fade away, leaving me this wise, calm, amazing version of myself. The perfect age for space exploration. And no one will know it! They'll think I'm just some old woman; never on to my secret power. I'll let my hair go white, will pull it back at the nape of my neck.

If you'll permit me to get a little more macabre, I've also been thinking about my funeral. At my own grandmother's funeral a few years ago, I looked around at one point and realized the mourners were all so much younger than her. Children, grandchildren, a great-grandchild. It was a sad day of course, but I also felt a strange little thrill for a moment. At my own funeral, lying with my tastefully arranged snow-white hair, the people crying (real tears! tears of heartbreak!) over me will be people who, as of 2009, I haven't met. Children and grandchildren - bonds that I have heard are some of the most powerful and rewarding you experience. All those people. All those great relationships. Still to come! Still in store for me.

Really. I can't wait to be an old woman.

This Week and Next

More lists, because they're so fun.

This week:

• No more Old Job. Started New Library Job. This one is so much more fun.
• Two work-free days in the middle of the week. Beautiful.
• Visited the Museum of Biblical Art for a Marc Chagall exhibit. (Chagall=everything I love)
• Had a chai latte at a Greenwich Village coffee house. Wrote in journal. Compared myself to those otherworldly stylish people who sat around me. Finished tea, put on dowdy winter hat, returned home. (Didn't feel jealous. Just different.)
• Cooked up a storm with all my winter break free time. Applesauce, potato soup, eggplant parmesan, yogurt smoothies, barbeque sandwiches, brussel sprouts... all in one giant pot. Kidding.
• Cleaned nasty bathtub, did four loads of laundry, hand washed sweaters that had been festering for months at the bottom of the laundry basket.
• Read like a demon.
• Got hooked on Weeds.

Next week:

• Will drive down to Washington, DC for the craziest, most ridiculous inauguration of all time.
• Will hang out with my fellow ticketless riff raff on the National Mall.
• Will not see Barack Obama in the flesh. Of this I have NO illusions.
• Will see some kickin' friends.
• Will miss my first class of the new semester. Some things are bigger than class.
  
• Will attend my second day of class.
• Will start that whole homework thing again... sigh.
• Will rage just a bit more against the dying of the free time light, with a little help from Ethan Hawke.
  

Dues and Exemptions

Have I ever mentioned that Oliver works for a bank? One of those big ones, on that street that's been having so much trouble lately? He doesn't work for one of those banks, you know, the ones that have been catching fire all over the news, but still. It's a little scary. Especially since he's too new to the U.S. workforce to qualify for unemployment, and his insurance is currently covering us both. Not that there's any immediate danger. In fact, there doesn't seem to be. But still. It's still a bank.

My life so far has been an incredible run of good luck. Everyone in my immediate family has always been healthy and stable. I've never had to worry about food or shelter, and I have never come up against some horrible truth that proved to me that life is not what I was led to believe it would be. With all the tragedies and crippling disappointments in the world, how can I be slotted for effortless existence? I can't be. It just can't be possible. Everyone has to pay their share of the dues, right? Is this economic crisis my time to open up the wallet and pay up what I owe?

I hope this doesn't sound too dark. I'm not crying myself to sleep or sewing dresses out of flour sacks. I'm just thinking.

When I lived in Chicago, I had a car. It was a dusty blue Yaris, and I parked it every day after work on Montrose. Montrose was a couple blocks from my apartment on Buena, and unlike lovely, leafy Buena (pictured above), it was a little gritty. It was the border line of a tougher neighborood, and I generally tried to avoid it after dark. One morning I came out to my car and noticed a large scratch. To be more accurate, it was a key mark. My car had been keyed, and a three-foot line was etched along the driver's side. Once the anger passed, I was able to see the vandalism in a more symbolic light. Let's say Montrose is the world, and Buena and the Yaris are my life. The world can be nasty; I've seen enough CNN to know that. So far, I've managed to spend my days on Buena. If I park on Montrose though, and I'm a part of Montrose, is it reasonable to expect my car to remain untouched? There are a lot of keys out there, and slim jims and people who know how to hotwire Toyotas. Again, I hope I don't sound too grim. I'm just wondering.