Minkgirl Muses

Gratitude Project
Day 14 – Father

I am grateful for my Father – Dad – Daddio as I playfully call him. He was a warm, loving, and protective presence in my early childhood years – playing guitar lullabies to help me sleep, hiking with me and my mother in the Blue Ridge mountains, listening with bright eyes and encouraging words to all my stories and needs. One of my earliest memories is the warmth of my father’s hand in mine after the cold metal of the swingset chains on a fall day.

During my teenage years, he was slow to anger, quick to forgive, and long on patience. I remember coming home with my first speeding ticket at 16, petrified by my own mistake and the prospect of losing a precious new freedom. He listened to my story, sympathized with my fear, and then helped me brainstorm better driving practices for the future. His slow, calm, rationale approach to problems offered valuable counterbalance to my more emotional and intense responses.

But one of the deepest and most unexpected gratitudes I carry for my Dad is the fact that he forced me to play basketball. When I started high school, he turned to me – his bookish, artsy, and clutzy daughter – and said “It’s time for you to play a team sport.” I thought he had lost his mind. My father had never required that I do any particular activity before. Couldn’t he see that I was hopelessly uncoordinated? That I had no business trying to do anything sport-related? I got to choose the sport –because I’m tall basketball seemed the obvious choice – but Dad wasn’t satisfied with just one season - he made me play for 3 years! I stunk up the LM Junior Varsity Team that whole time, despite endless wind sprints and backyard ball-handling drills. The sweet and ineffectual JV coach even had a mantra ready for the infrequent occasions when I got my hands on the ball – “Okay ‘Tine, pass it, PASS IT, don’t dribble!!!”

But as it turns out, basketball was the start of many good things in my life. It was my entryway to joining Crew, a sport which I did like, and which I was good at. My 3 years of toil on the basketball court also taught me many valuable lessons about perseverance, and the satisfaction that comes from working hard to overcome obstacles. The basketball team was also my first experience collaborating with others – an activity that has become central to my artistic life. Dad really knew what he was doing.

As I deal with the many parenting challenges that my 2-year old and 6-year old lob at me daily, I try to keep the image of my patient, loving, and occasionally brilliantly insistent Dad in the back of my mind – a little beacon to remind me that while I will do some things wrong as a parent, I will also do much that is right.

Photo: Dad reading to Miss V (age 18 months)

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Gratitude Project
Day 13 – Luck

I’m grateful for good luck. I’ve always been mildly superstitious/spiritual, but only in an optimistic sense. In other words, I look for good omens but ignore the bad ones! And there are always lots of ways one can view one’s luck as good – in fact, good luck is really just another name for the expression of gratitude.

But I am also aware of luck as a cosmic force – one that gives some people more hardship to deal with than others. Many religions have a version of “there but for the grace of G-d, go I”, that quintessential reminder of the thin line that separates the fortunate from the unfortunate. When I think about my own luck, I tend to think of cross-roads events that I either experienced or avoided, which have deeply affected the course of my life. Here is a short-list of good luck I have experienced in my life:

• I was born to two educated and mostly healthy parents
• I have never experienced a serious illness or injury
• I had no pregnancies prior to the two intended ones
• I have always found a job (eventually) when I needed one
• I have a partner who is engaged and committed to our family
• Whenever I lose touch with a friend, another one comes into my life
• Both my parents are alive and know their grandchildren

When I was a little girl, I attended Sunday school, where we learned about poverty in Africa. I often wondered why I had been born in a particular time and place with so many resources, and why there were other children who were living very different and extremely more difficult lives. I still wonder all the time about this question as an adult. “Unto whom much is given, much is expected.” I don’t know why I have experienced all this good luck in my life. I am trying to be grateful for what I have. But as I shift into the 2nd half of my life, I am also trying to wake up to what this luck is asking – expecting – of me.

Photo: by KagedFish

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Gratitude Project

Day 12 - New Beginnings

I’m a sucker for new beginnings…I’ve written about this before. I believe at their core, people are either fundamentally pessimistic or optimistic. For all my existential angst and attraction to the darker side of life, I find hope continually bobbing up inside me like an irrepressible cork. I am grateful to the universe and to my DNA for whatever chemical cocktail allows this to be so.

Of all new beginnings, the beginning of the school year is my favorite. I used to be so excited before the first day of school that I couldn’t sleep all night. I agonized over my first day outfit. I loved going to Mapes, my local 5 and 10, and squeezing through the crowds in the narrow aisles to pick out my school supplies. Because each time the school year started, it was a chance to become a new person, to re-write (and improve) the script.

One of the great things about the job I now have - university professor - is that I get to continue living by the familiar academic calendar. I am guaranteed two new beginnings a year, two chances to become a better teacher, a kinder advisor, a more thoughtful colleague, a more efficient worker, a smarter and more articulate person.

A fresh start. There is nothing else like it. A get-out-of-jail-free, leave-all-your-mess-behind, finally-get-to-be-your-best-self new day.

Photo: Michael Josh Villaneuva

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Gratitude Project

Day 11 – Black & White Photographs

Another gratitude, which is also inspired by my father, is the love of black & white photographs. I like photography in general, but black & white photographs are especially pleasing to me. The high contrast of the form, the extraordinary impact of light and shadow on people’s faces, is captivating to me. Everyone is more beautiful in black & white. Everyone reveals more about themselves than they mean to. When I see a black & white photograph, I feel peaceful, because it reminds me of what I already know: that humans are fundamentally good, soft, yearning creatures, who just want to lean toward the light.

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Gratitude Project
Day 10 – Aerial Boundaries

I have had the same favorite song for a really long time – at least 15 years. The song is called Aerial Boundaries, and it is written and performed by the extraordinary late guitar genius Michael Hedges. My father introduced me to this song, which is one of the reasons it is so special to me. He and I even saw Michael perform it live once. And he told me the story (possibly apocryphal) of its origin – that Michael wrote the song for a documentary movie about people who were traveling through the Arctic via sled dog teams. You can hear both the vast openness of that kind of natural space and also a sense of racing movement in the song. You can also hear a deeper pulse – a heartbeat? – which remains steady despite how much the melody travels. If you watch him play the song, you will be absolutely astounded by the fact that anyone could conjure so much sound out of a single instrument. Whenever I need to calm myself or dive into a deeper place within, this is the first song I listen to.

Labels: Gratitude Project

Gratitude Project
Day 9 – Wheels

A wonderful woman in my life (who is also married to my father) just gave me a car. Changes in our family schedule this year necessitated the purchase of a 2nd car, and since L wanted to get a new car herself, she decided to pass on her 2000 Toyota Corolla to me!

I haven’t owned many cars in my life – only one other that was really mine and not shared. The freedom of having my own wheels is a bliss I had forgotten. I can now get in my car anytime and drive wherever I want. This fact has made my life immeasurably less stressful and more pleasurable in the last few weeks.

Labels: Gratitude Project

Gratitude Project

Day 8 – Sister

I was nearly 8 years old the day my parents brought my sister home from the hospital. I had spent the summer at a poorly supervised horse-back riding camp, where kids as young as myself were allowed to lead horses around and sneak off on trails rides. It was pure bliss. I felt strong, capable, and complete.

When I arrived home, wearing my dusty boots and britches, my mother immediately sent me to shower. I got out and started toweling off, and she told me to get back in and take another shower. That was my first tip-off that this sister-thing was going to be big. I had never had to get so clean before touching something before.

As I held my sister for the first time and gazed down into her mushy baby-face, I remember my brain doing this crazy expansion thing, like something out of the Matrix movie. My brain, and then my heart, started to unfold into new dimensions I had never realized were there. I knew intuitively in that moment, that the human I was holding was an extraordinary miracle, and that her existence would be central to my own forever. This moment was also a beautiful foreshadowing of the similar self-expanding moments that I would experience later holding my own children for the first time.

I am grateful for so much about my sister – I’ll sing her praises more in future posts – but the first gratitude is for how she made me aware of the mystical and awesome universe we live in.

Photo: My sister carrying my daughter (age 9 months)

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I live in San Francisco, where we take coffee seriously. Granted, not as seriously as Seattle, where the ability to make a foam florette seems a requisite for citizenship. But still, pretty seriously. We have Pete’s, and 4 Barrel, and Blue Bottle, and (my personal favorite) Martha Bros., all of which roast their own beans. Once you’ve drunk really good coffee, it is hard to turn back. The aroma. The flavor. The subtle kick of the caffeine mixed with these sensorial pleasures. There is no other high like it. In the melodramatic scenario where I’m forced to choose between wine and coffee, it would be agony to make the call…but coffee would win every time.

Gratitude Project
Day 6 – Mr. Wilke

Classes at my college start next week, and this week is all about preparing the syllabi: choosing readings, brainstorming assignments, crafting the class by class plan. Whenever I do this kind of work, the teachers who have made the biggest impact on me seem to be sitting on my shoulder like angels. They nod approvingly when I come up with something innovative to include; they shake their heads when I try to reuse old material.

One of these angels is Mr. Wilke – a high-school Acting teacher and the faculty advisor for the student theater club. I joined the club as an actor my freshman year, and directed my first play with the club as a junior. Mr. Wilke could tell I was pretty serious about the theater thing, so one day he told me to meet him in his classroom after school. When I arrived he told me to take out my notebook and pen. “If you are serious about drama,” he said, “then there are some playwrights you need to read. Write this down…Brecht, Buechner, Pinter, Albee, Anouih…”. “Wait… how do you spell that?”

He proceeded to give me a list (sorted by country) of the world’s greatest dramatists. He encouraged me to check their plays out of the library. To read widely. To discover what I liked. That small encouragement was the start of my a life-long passion. I might have found my way to these dramatists on my own eventually, but his acknowledgment of my interest, his faith in my ability to read and comprehend the “big boys” of world drama was a huge shot in the arm. It made me want to learn. It made me want to be better to make him proud.

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Gratitude Project
Day 5 – Shoes

I really like shoes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have a fetish, but it is definitely a passion. Lately, I’m into red shoes, with tooled leather. There is something about a pair of beautiful shoes, that makes me want to take the long road.

Labels: Gratitude Project

There is an amazing non-profit you should know about called The Girl Effect. Check out their jaw-dropping promotional video. Basically, the concept is that if you educate girls in developing nations, they will do the hard work of DEVELOPING THE NATION. Education of girls is linked to higher levels of everything good (literacy, infant/maternal health, economic prosperity) and lower levels of everything bad (HIV infection, poverty, malnutrition, political unrest). Education really is key – to surviving – to thriving – to peace.

I am grateful that I was born in 1970. That, despite being a girl, my family encouraged me to go to college, and that I was able to enter a college of my choice. I’m grateful for all the things I studied, for all the professors who prodded me to ask bigger questions, for the chance to learn, to think, to investigate, to explore. I use my education everyday. It is the very best gift my parents gave me. I look forward to giving it to my own children and to other children whose parents are whispering “thank you thank you thank you” as they drive away from the campus, leaving their precious ones in my care.

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Gratitude Project
Day 3 - Trees

One of my earliest childhood memories is of traipsing around the Audubon Society preserve in eastern Pennsylvania with my mother. She was a botanist and knew the Latin name for every flower. We hunted together for crocuses, jack-in-the-pulpits, wild iris and wild lilies. I loved following the familiar trails of the preserve, which were marked with blue blazes, up and over the hill, past the cave, to the meadow and back. But what I loved most were the trees. There were more kinds of trees in this preserve that I could count – curious birches, stately Douglas pines, giant Oaks, slender elms, and scrubby myrtles. In the fall, the entire forest would turn vermilion, burnt orange, and umber. I felt safe among the trees. And blessed. Some people say nature is their church. For me, the divine is most accessible in a stand of tall trees.

I think “Deciduous” and “Coniferous” were the first scientific terms I ever learned. When I was 10, and not particularly popular, I spent hours reading while lying on the strong horizontal branches of the cherry trees lining our yard. I whispered my pre-adolescent secrets to those trees. They felt like old friends. As an adult, I have often thought that no matter what happens to me, no matter what physical or emotional ailment I am afflicted by, I will be alright as long as I have a window to look out of with a slice of sky and a tree in view. Trees are eternal. Like the ocean, they remind me of the value of just “being”.

Photo by Me (Muir Woods, February 2010)

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Gratitude Project
Day 2 - Lip Balm

Everyone has their desert island list. We all watched Lost and cringed or cheered when they went postal over - peanut butter - dental floss - Ayn Rand novels. For me, it's lip balm. The. One. Thing. I cannot live without.

Labels: Gratitude Project

The Gratitude Project

I turn 40 years old in 40 days. I've always been a sucker for symbolic numbers. And I'm feeling inspired by my friend B, who in the months before she turned 40 sent 40 letters of thanks to people who had influenced her life - I was lucky enough to receive one! I thought about repeating her project, but I've never been a great letter-writer. Something about extra steps of addressing the envelope and finding a stamp always seems to derail me.

Instead, I am going to attempt to write about 40 things/people/experiences/ideas/phenomena that I feel grateful for, and which I believe have significantly enriched my life. I hope the practice of gratitude will both honor the path I have traveled thus far and help me learn to make a habit out of being grateful. 39 has been a dark year for me. I am hoping the 40's will bring a more permanent turn toward the sun.

Day 1 - Words

I am grateful for words. For the gift of speech. For the printed word. For the amazing permutations, idiosyncrasies, and random beauties embedded in the collection of words known as the English language. I love, love, love words. I love talking (as anyone who knows me can attest.) I love listening, and the fact that through the act of speech, so much is revealed about the speaker. As a dramaturg and director, I have committed myself to manifesting stories based on words. To fully realizing the text. I have also spent many, many pleasant hours talking to my husband and to my friends about the world and the ways we are moving through it. I have recently realized that it is only through dialogue with others - through the act of speaking, listening, and responding - that I am able to fully understand what I think about a topic or situation. I have already made two theater pieces that used as their jumping off point the phrase: "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with G-d, and the Word was G-d. Without the Word was not anything made that was made." And I imagine that I will continue to make future theater pieces based on this bit from the Bible, because I actually believe this is the truest expression of how our world came to be.

Labels: Gratitude Project