Finding Peace in the Cover of a 5 year-old's Book

While walking through our staff room I saw this reading book some of our teachers use with the five year-old students here to help them decipher the difference between a need and a want. But I think that every year of our lives we should study this kind of a lesson. The needs and wants get trickier the older we get because with time we develop rationale, we develop self-manipulation, we develop  a sense of what we are owed in life, what we deserve. The very nature of becoming an adult is based on understanding the difference between these two ideas. I want to go to that music show that starts at midnight on a Wednesday, but I need to be a functioning adult the next morning for work. I want those pair of $250 pumps that would be perfect for that wedding I'm attending, but I need to make a credit card payment and get an oil change. I want a burger with an extra large fries and a coke, but I need to eat more root veggies and fruit if I'm going to make it though the day without crashing into a food coma at 3:00p.m. Choices, decisions, desires.

It sounds easy, right? But so often I get these two ideas mixed up. I need caffeine. I need to lose 10 pounds. I need to "figure it out." (Whatever the hell that means!) I need to go out! But if I were to make a list of what I actually needed right now, in my life, I have everything I need and everything I actually say that "I need" is pretty much "a want."

It's so easy to take what we have for granted. So easy to look over the needs we have met while chasing the wants we would like. I have an apartment, a job, and food in my refrigerator. I have shoes on my feet, and even if they aren't always the ones that I want, I have shoes on my feet. I am healthy and because of this I have the ability to be fit. I am fit. Not super fit, just fit.

I have two conversations going on in my head at all time. One that constantly says I'm not doing enough and one that is telling me to give myself a break. Unfortunately, the former voice is the more dominant voice, and yesterday I was at a loss with what to do with that voice. I was again at a loss with what to do with that dreaded "c-word"- career. I was even at a loss with what to write about. But then I found this picture I snapped a couple of weeks ago because I knew the cover of this little book would become significant in some way and sometime soon. I knew that it stood out to me for a reason, and I think now it's because the two voices in my head are also fueled by these two ideas. I want more money, more satisfaction, more freedom! But I need to be sane and healthy and peaceful if I am going to enjoy any of that. While I feel that I need a bigger, better job, I need to "grow" career-wise, maybe what this job affords me is actually what I need: to be able to write, to read, to listen, little stress, lots of time, which makes me think what I really need, I already have: love, health, expression.  Everything else is just spaghetti.

Some Ethereal Osmosis

In flipping through a couple of printed emails today, the tail end of someone's signature showed up at the top of a page all by itself. It read, "Leadership is creating the environment and setting the tone so that others can do their best work."  It has been added to the clutter beneath my computer screen full of reminders and and scraps of inspiration. If I keep these in my line of sight, might one day I absorb and embody them through some ethereal osmosis? 

Love on the Brain

Good for a rainy Saturday..

Wait Time: The Agony & The Ecstasy

Last night I was watching the news and there was a segment called "Impatient Nation." The newsman said that "we live our lives in fast forward" and that according to a study done by Google, the average American will wait no more than 250 milliseconds for an answer. They were comparing today's understanding of patience with the days of Jane Eyre where the protagonist waits months for a letter. I have not read the book since high school so I don't remember this part, but it's beside the point. Forget waiting for an answer, if I'm not entertained in a sufficient amount of time I change the channel or flip to one of the other handful of websites I like to check and being part of the blogging world makes that endless. I could spend an entire afternoon just catching up on blogs I like to read or sites I like to check out. I flip back and forth between reading odd stories and stories so devastating, I never get to the end. The immediate access of information, entertainment and distraction has not only shortened my attention span and depleted my sense of patience, but it has made the truly devastating intolerable. Why should I read the entire story about that high school shooting in Ohio? Why should I read the entire article about what's happening with the GOP primaries? There is something more entertaining, more uplifting, more mind-numbing two clicks away. Why watch the news when TMZ is telling me about Zac Efron dropping a condom on the red carpet?

Tonight I watched a snippet of the news, all these kids, so brokenhearted mourning three of their own, wondering why they were spared? Why their friends were dead? Why bad things happen? I flip to a sitcom. I get bored of the sitcom, think these jokes are not funny. I flip back and  see snippets of the tornado damage throughout the midwest. I hear a daughter cry about how her parents have "been together forever" while all that remains of their home is a cookie jar and one wall of a kitchen, the drapes still hanging, the sky as their ceiling. Another sitcom, another lame joke. Another shooting, three teens shot outside of a Burger King in Queens just a couple of hours ago. I flip. I change. I hop online.

I have an addictive personality. I bite my fingernails. I pick at my face. I used to smoke cigarettes in college, something I eternally am regretful of, but I was by myself in New York City and I wore big black boots and I thought I looked pretty bad ass, but I digress. For someone like me, who already has the tendency for odd addictions (I used to obsessively collect vintage postcards. Like, if I found a rack of old black and white prints in some novelty shop, I would HAVE to buy one of each. Somewhere in a shoebox I have hundreds of postcards, mainly of old movie stars and rock legends.) the pace of today's world greases by ADD wheels. My job is very sedentary, and there can be quite a bit of downtime, which I fill with checking my email, Facebook, blogging on my personal blog, reading blogs, reading the news and odd stories, blogging on my other blog, doing freelance work, all the while never sitting with one task too long.

I read scripts and books as a freelance job on the side which requires me to write a type of book report at the end. I have noticed that where I used to just sit down and write the report all the way through, (sometimes all 20 pages of it) now I can barely get through a paragraph before "checking something." And now that I have a smartphone, forget it. I think this is part of the reason I was having anxiety issues in November and December (that linked with too much caffeine, did I tell you I have an addictive personality?) Lately I've been feeling those rumblings again and Monday's commute home after a rare afternoon coffee, was no picnic.  I have already been trying to slow myself down. Cut out caffeine. Don't check my email every time I turn on my phone and I even stopped looking for new emails on my phone. I longed for the days when I had to be sitting down somewhere to read and respond to an email. Email is one of the most brilliant, most convenient inventions ever and we still thought of a way to make it faster!!! My addictive tendencies, which right now lean towards technology, coupled with my instincts to react to problems that are not mine, can and will make me crazy if I do not learn how to harness the beast (myself) inside this other beast (Impatient Nation).  I have come to understand multi-tasking as being "productive." Which, while it can be, also means I am never fully devoting my attention to any one thing. So while I may be "productive" what is the final "product" am I producing?

I have been trying to slow it down...with everything. I've been trying to strip away. If I get an email, does it warrant a response? How soon do I have to send that response? Why do I have to be on other people's time? Or the bigger question: what exactly is my time? I'm so used to "doing" instead of "pausing." So used to committing before thinking if it is possible. I'm used to reacting, responding quickly, rather than absorbing, sitting with something, figuring out how and what I really feel. To thine own self be true. This has been the first week in two years where I didn't make at least one plan after work and you know what I discovered? I LOVE coming home after work. Not only that, but when I come home after work, I can actually stay on top of keeping it clean. I can enjoy my apartment which we pay quite dearly for. But I have to be careful, because being home makes me think I can now "relax" and before I know it, I have the television on and the computer in my lap. I kept trying to start this blogpost and realized that if I turned the tv off, maybe something would come. Sure enough...

I'm starting a movement. A sssslllllllllooooooowwwwwww movement. One that makes me focus on one task at a time. One that makes me pause, write a note to myself to get back to something instead of making a quick decision I will later regret or default on. I am going to try to strip away the stimulants, cut down on my internet time, get back to writing my book, give myself an hour of nothing before going to bed. If we really are living in fast forward, if we rewind it just a little bit, might we find ourselves in the present?

Tramp Stamp Thursdays: The Hippie Peace-Loving Tat

Julie,  Bend, OR

Tramp Stamp
Peace! One Love, Man!  I mean...Children are the future!...you know?... yo, let me a get hit off that...what were we talking about?

Julie in her Camp Counselor Element

Time of Tramp Stamp
21 Years Old

Place of Tramp Stamp
Burlington, Vermont, Baby! Granola crunching, incense burning, paisley dress boutique shops, Church Street, you know it! What, what!!


Tattoo Meaning
I'm a camp counselor in Vermont.

Bio
Julie, a Louisiana native, now works in a bakery in Bend, Oregon and lives with her bearded, charming partner. She is also a bad-ass skier, canoeist, canner, maker of fermented veggies and beer, hiker, kick-ass friend, dancer...oh and she was a dairy farmer for many years in Vermont...after she was a camp counselor with me.

[Editor's Note:] When I first met Julie at Summer Camp Orientation for staff, she was wearing a jean jacket and hoop earrings. Three months later, she had armpit hair and Chacos.

Julie and I back in the day, in a barn. Yes, I
am wearing a beaded necklace I made at camp
and I think Julie is wearing a hemp necklace.
One Love.

[Editor's Guilty Confession:] I was with Miss Julie when she got this tattoo, which I believe was a cover up of another tramp stamp. I believe it was a sun, the OG of all tramp stamps. I think I may have even been holding Julie's hand during this tattoo which was an idea she came in with. As Julie herself said,  "It all started with this damn iron on patch you get from Michael's, the craft store. It was of little people holding hands. I didn't quite get it ironed on the wallet I made myself, but boy oh boy did I get it ironed on..." It shows multi-colored stick-figure children holding hands around the globe. Julie said, "I handed the artist the children holding hands cut-out from my wallet I'd been carrying around for years, and said, "Please sir, would you cover that sun with this?" If I remember correctly, Julie's first reaction was that it was "big" but that she loved it. Julie, nothing is bigger than getting the earth and children tattooed over your ass. Well done. In hindsight, Julie said, "I honestly don't know how it began.....other than an urge to be bold...by tattooing children on my motherf'ing ass."

[Editor's Note:] She is one of my favorite people ever.

Tattoo Goal
Knowing Julie, she has no shame about bearing this tattoo or anything for that matter. She loves life, loves people, and loves getting naked. (And she sends friends homemade cards which make them all gushy inside.)

Julie, keep going "big." xo, Tonesters

If you are interested in having your tramp stamp profiled, leave a comment or tweet me @rewindrevise

Wordless Wednesdays: Brooklyn Bright

Tuesday Treats Snippet: Lena DeGloma

My friend Lena is a licensed and very talented massage therapist as well as a birth doula and an herbalist.  A more detailed profile of Lena will come at a later date, but for now check out her article on the benefits of prenatal massage as well as massage during labor for both mom and baby. If you have ever been interested in a natural birth, this article may sway you! And I can speak for her massages. If you live in Brooklyn, give yourself a treat and book an appointment. Your body and mind will thank you.

Check out http://www.redmoonmassagetherapy.com/