Dogwoods, Dinner and Dancing

Went to visit my littlest sis yesterday; since she and the hubster have moved back to the east coast, and they're just an hour and a half away, there's really no excuse, these days.

Decided to go to Umstead Park to canoe around the lake, only to find out that Umstead has two entrances and we came in the wrong one to get to the lake. So we hiked "Inspiration Loop," (not so inspiring, if you ask me) and took some photos and read little placards about trees.

Dinner was with the Park Alum from NCSU at 18 Seaboard in Raleigh. I hadn't realized the Park program was so new; I thought it had been around as long as the Morehead Scholars (now the Morehead-Cain Scholars) program. Alas, that is not the case. The 10th class of Park Scholars is about to graduate, and so, I was one of the oldest in the room. Many Park have moved away from the area (not surprisingly), but the dinner was overbooked, so that bodes well for the newly formed group.

I can't say much for 18 Seaboard. I think this restaurant has a lot of potential and they have an amazing wine list (they've got my Qupe Syrah), but the food really didn't live up to my expectations. Sauteed spinach was awesome, but if I'm paying that much for dinner, the steak ought to be, too. It wasn't.

The evening continued with the "social dance" part of ballroom dance. (For those of you who don't know, my sister is a WONDERFUL ballroom dancer. Wins awards and stuff. Yeah, that good. Watch her here at a competition in 2007.)

I concede to go, thinking, "Ok, I've got no idea how to do any of these dances, but I can appreciate watching dancing, so I'll just do that."

RIGHT.

Turns out you really don't have to have much of a clue of what you're doing to swing (either east coast or west coast) or lindy or salsa or bachata or meringue. Because I was doing all of that - basically - by the end of the night. With the parade of men who kept asking. Almost every single song.

Now, here's my fuss about the rules: If you just look creepy to me and I turn you down for a dance, I shouldn't be penalized for doing so. (Technically, if you turn someone down for a dance, you're not supposed to do that particular style of dance any longer. Ha.) It's not my fault my creep meter goes off. For all I know, you're going to stalk me back to wherever I live and kill me in my sleep. I'm not gonna give you that opportunity to develop such an obsession with me. Sorry. Deal with it.

French toast for breakfast, church at St. Andrew's and lunch at the mexican joint around the corner.

Quality girl time; every second of it needed. (Thanks, hon.)

Memory

A memory isn't a simple concept. You don't remember being happy just once; you have multitudes of memories of being happy and multitudes of memories of sadness and longing, some more keen than others. But they're all different. The capacity to create memories is bounded by our own doing, by our own receptiveness to the possibility. Every moment could be a memory, if there was something extraordinary in every moment. But in this life, by necessity, every moment isn't extraordinary, and thus, memories, born out of extraordinary moments become extraordinary themselves.

At what age do we begin to doubt our own memories, so that we need tangible reminders of them? Is it sad that we do so? Nothing could be so amazing as the event from which the memory was born. Nothing could be so real, so poignant, so true than that moment in which it happens - not for that one memory. It's a simple fact that the one moment (or moments, as the case may be) can never be duplicated.

But that moment, that one singular moment, that memory slips away because the ability to remember, itself, slips away. We forget the amazing. The place, the people, the smells, the sights, the light, the sound, the feeling and the time - oh, the feeling and the time. No, everything else could be recreated with a bit of particular planning. But it would be different - because the feeling and the time's different. The recreation, for the purpose of duplicating the circumstances surrounding that memory, is a sad stand-in for the real thing.

Never has a cherished memory been remembered than has also been remembered it's twin: the erstwhile longing that it simply could not happen again. Perhaps the pain and resignation of knowing that accompany that memory. And sometimes, we allow the negative part of the memory overcome the positive. And sometimes, we don't.

But what of the mementos that we keep? Are they a sad stand-in for the real thing? No, but what makes them anything but a sad substitute? It is because we attach the memory of that feeling, that extraordinary moment, to that memento.

The memories are a part of who we are; the mementos a tangible piece of our past, our history, the most significant events that shaped our lives - at least the ones we want to remember. Forgetting a memory, then, would be much like forgetting our past. Forgetting our past only bodes that we'd soon enough forget ourselves, too.

So, I have my mementos. Everyone does, be it as simple as a half-dollar or a box of photos or ticket stubs or videos or locks of hair . . .

"It's an old box I put away
with memories of other days.
Up in the attic it will stay
Till they haul it all away.
Oooh, no sad farewells
I'll just keep it on the shelf.
An old box, but don't you see
It still means a lot to me.

I don't know exactly why
But losing them would make me cry
Just an old box of memories
They really mean a lot to me."
- Selection from An Old Box of Memories, Pete Wernick (or here)

**Thanks to my dear Deb for noting this quote in some of her writing and for finding the quote that's so fabulous that I had to find out more about this guy. He plays Merlefest, to which I have to go one of these years, since I'm just an hour east. He played with Phish in November 1997 at McNichols Arena in Denver, when Phish was still touring. (Yes, I did go see Phish once . . . Jess can tell that story.)

C'est la vie

$1191. Round-trip. GSO to CDG. Tomorrow. Seven days, at least.

*Sigh.* I wish.

I was there, once. The weather was horrible and the company wasn't any better. But the cheese and the coffee and the wine and the crepes and the gardens and the morning market that I so wanted to shop and the Metro and the flowers and the cobblestones and actually being able to understand some of the language. And the Seine and the art.

And mass in Notre Dame in a language I'm not yet fluent in, but with recognizable traditions that made me feel at home, nonetheless. And the Eiffel Tower at night, sparkling like a glass of champagne with a spotlight on it, so that all the bubbles danced and reflected the light in a million directions.

An American in Paris earlier this week did it, I think. 'Course, watching Sabrina didn't help much.

J'adore le Paris, mais je n'ai pas l'argent pour les vacances. Peut-etre un jour. C'est la vie.

The Detriment of Despair

(February 13, 1999)

Once a person gets despair out of the way, very few things can slow his progress.

Despair is the dividing line between those who can take impossibility in stride and those those who wilt at the first sign of opposition. Too much energy is spent in despair. Strength gives way to weakness and weakness robs us of the will to overcome.

Anything that wastes energy should be left behind. Energy cuts doubt to the bone. When a word of power is spoken, new strength is generated. Power words are not just pretty words, but strong words of courage that are heard in the heart where they stay to do a perfect work.

Have a great Valentine's Day.

Peace,
Tawanka

**Note: My files say that I received this on February 13, but it wasn't saved in that order in my current folder. Thus, the slightly out-of-context reference, given the email I posted from Grandma last week.**

Happiness is . . .

Really cheap, real-life garden porn. Yes, now I've got quite a few still healthy and

viable pansies to plant tomorrow.

The decorated giant chocolate chip Valentine's cookies that Mom & I made yesterday evening. Yes, it's silly. Yes, they're decorated badly (hey, we'd had more than a few glasses of wine by that point). Yes, the email she sent earlier in the week about planning an evening to make the cookies made me cry, because we haven't done this since I was, oh, maybe 6 years old and I LOVED IT. It was the one thing about Valentine's that made me question my intense hate for the "holiday."

Don't get me wrong. Valentine's can be beyond fabulous, I'm sure. But it's never been beyond fabulous for me. (Let me caveat that by saying that I had a wonderful Girls Night Out this past Valentine's and it takes the cake, so far, no contest.)

My hate for Valentine's probably has something to do with realizing I was one of, oh, maybe two kids in class of 25, that only got two or three stupid valentines from the other kids in the class. And this happened year after year. And it was worse when teachers made it mandatory that you bring valentines for EVERYONE and announced it to the class, because that's oh-so-good for your self-esteem: getting a bag of valentines from people who didn't want to give them to you in the first place.

And I'll spare you my thoughts about middle school and high school. Just take the above feeling and apply to adolescence. Yeah.

SNOW!

Yep, the meteorologist admitted that this weather pattern is so rare and unlikely that they had no idea it was coming.

But it makes me happy. And yes, I'm hoping that Lanie Pope meant 12 hours instead of 2 hours when she said how much longer it would last. I'd like to sleep in tomorrow and not go to work. That, in addition to the Single Girls Night Out, would make for perhaps, the best Valentine's Day I've ever had.

Word of the Day

Courtesy of Dictionary.com:

ersatz \AIR-sahts; UR-sats\, adjective: Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.

Oy.

Hurt and Healing

(February 14, 1999)

All wounds need time to heal. And when it seems the healing has done its work, protection from further hurt is necessary, because the scars are on the surface. Physical wounds are bad enough, but when they come from mental cruelty and unfair treatment, pain returns again and again to reopen what no one should have to bear.

It seems almost a sacrilege to ask someone so deeply hurt to forgive those who caused it. Yet forgiveness causes damage almost as devastating as physical wounds, or more so. There is greater stress in bearing grudges and the abused do no need any new pain or new problems.

Forgiveness does not set the abusive free, but the abused.

Peace,
Tawanka

P.S. The window of opportunity does NOT open itself.

A Year of Quotes

I realized today, after cleaning up my inbox and reading some old emails, that I hadn't posted my list of quotes that accompanied my personal emails in 2007. As I mentioned, I'd say they pretty well mirror my 2007. And, ftm, I think they're all pretty great. Enjoy!

• "If I am going to live in a fantasy world, I need to work on developing a more impressive fantasy." - Merrill Markoe
• "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim." - Nora Ephron
• "We give ourselves permission to grow, to live long and well, to prosper and be in good health." - Tawanka
• "Life is about discomfort, and one of our tasks is to learn to live graciously in the midst of that discomfort.” - Anj
• "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anaïs Nin
• “We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults." - George Eliot
• “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller

The Season of Beautiful Sunsets

On my drive home today, I realized that it's now what I like to call "The Season of Beautiful Sunsets." I'm blessed because I get to drive in the direction of the sunset, as opposed to sneaking peaks at it in my rear-view mirror.

It's that time of year (which thankfully comes twice), where the sky is resplendent with color in the evening. It's the promise of the change from winter to spring, the promise of new life - or the promise of the change from fall to winter, the promise of the blessings of quiet introspection. It's the reminder that what is will pass and what will come is so much better. It begs the one who sees the sunset to dare to be sad or melancholy or upset, because it is so impossible to do so when presented with such beauty and the promise of peace. It's a season that gives me hope, which is greatly challenged in my life these days.

And over that 30 minute drive, the colors melted from a pale yellow to brilliant orange to a deep red and finally a lavender, before I had to turn the other direction. And I'd post a photo, but I hadn't realized I was so close to The Season, so the camera's not in the car - and the one in the phone won't do these sunsets justice. But the camera will be in the car tomorrow.

And tomorrow, there might be a photo of The Season posted here.

7 Things

SarahSouth, a local blogger who writes wonderful things about her new nephew, life in med school, wine and finding new ways to intimidate Martha Stewart with her own wonderful crafty ideas, tagged me recently. (For those of you who don't know what a tag is, look . . . um, nevermind. I can't find a good site that describes a tag - yet. It's evidently a abbreviation of "memetag" which has come from memetic studies. ) You can read Sarah's tag post here.

So, here are my 7 quirky/odd/completely-me things:
1) When I'm writing or working on the novels, I have to have a cup of decaf Twinings Earl Grey with honey and lemon juice added. The thoughts don't flow correctly otherwise.
2) I like routine, more than I'll admit sometimes. (See evidence in #1.)
3) When I was younger, I'd people-watch. Except I'd call it, "Watching the chaos." Because it always seemed much like chaos to me at the time.
4) When I finished grad school, my mind was so used to being alert and active until all hours of the night that it took me at least six months to get back to a decent sleeping schedule. I read and blogged a lot during those days.
5) I swim when I really need to think about something.
6) I crave sunshine.
7) I can smell snow in the air before it falls (which is kinda unusual for a southern gal).

Facing Fear (aka, Today's Truth-to-Liz Moment)

(February 10, 1999)

Turn around right where you are and face the frightening situation on your path. Don't waver and dodge. Look the problem in the eye and call it nothing. Speak to it in no uncertain terms so there is no doubt that it must go.

Wisdom tells us to get out of harm's way, but it never tells us to weep with fear. Once we turn and face it, a quiet strength pours in to end the fear.

Fear is terrorism. It is not running from it that cripples us, but refusing to call it what it is. When fear takes over, it flows through our whole thinking.

If we have any faith at all, it is sacred faith, but faith will grow when we charge it with determination and powerful words.

Peace,
Tawanka