Happy Halloween!

Every once in a while, it is fun to pretend you are someone else. That is why I think Halloween is so great—not because I care about either the Pagan or Christian ideals it celebrates or protests. An acquaintance of mine on good ol’ Facebook posted this week that she would never let her children dress up for Halloween, not ever. She doesn’t believe in celebrating a Pagan holiday that glorifies blood and guts. I say she’s missed the spirit of the thing.

Pretending to be someone else, or something else, if only just for an evening, is an excellent way to explore another side of your personality. It can make you feel interesting, or brave, or more serious, or less constricted. It can allow you to see what it’s like to alter your personality, without a firm commitment to change.

I read a great article in The Atlantic this week about the idea that everyone has multiple personalities, conflicting for control, rather than one distinct self. I often feel this way—that there is more than one “me” in my body, or mind, or wherever what you would call the soul resides. I have attributed it before to being a Gemini—two persons in one mind. Allowing oneself to give over control to one of those other personalities for the evening is what makes Halloween so interesting to me.

By the way, if you’re looking for a costume, or you need a specific accessory to go WITH your costume, at any time of the year, you should check out Dottie Mae’s Costumes in Kansas City. I borrowed some angel wings from a friend at work, but I needed a halo to complete my outfit (see picture in this post!). I found just what I needed at Dottie Mae’s (plus a reason to have MULTIPLE costume parties in the near future, there were so many great options).

Empathy

As this emotion-fraught election season draws to a close, tempers are flaring and metaphorical, hate-filled punches are being thrown by both sides of the electorate. I’m really more of a story-teller, rather than a political blogger, and I don’t intend to start spouting my political views here. I know some of you are thinking back to the Kate you knew in 2000, and remembering how annoyed I was at any mention of the election, and my roommates for fixating upon it and having knock-down, drag-outs about who should have won and how the votes were counted. Kate hates politics, you are saying to yourselves.

Well, I’ve grown up a bit since then. I don’t know if that is what has made me care about the state of the union this year—I’m getting older, and I can see how it matters. Some of it is the candidates themselves—how exciting to see a black man and a woman both on tickets this year. Some of it is the need for a new direction in our country, and that feeling that ANYTHING has to be better than this. Regardless, politics seems to permeate almost every discussion I overhear in the hallways at work, as well as the conversations I participate in.

I’ve always had a fascination with how people’s brains function. I spend a lot of time pondering why the people I know think the way they do. I try to diagnose the neuroses of my friends and family and acquaintances and co-workers. I'm always convinced there must be some psychological reason that people do the things they do. I had a boss, who will remain nameless (but my friend Red and I called him The Powser--our slang for a poser on a power trip), of whom I could never make up my mind whether he was actually crazy, or if he knew what he was doing was wrong most of the time, but was sure he could convince the rest of us that he was right. Either way, he was nuts.

As I watch the political ads and the interviews with pundits and listen to editorials on both sides of this election, I am struck by the fact that both sets of people have a stock set of lines to deliver. I know these things are what unites us with those on our side, but yesterday I heard some of those stock lines delivered by a co-worker. She said it like she thought it up alone, like she was the first person to say it. That made me realize that it isn't just a line she's spewing--it is a belief.

This particular person is on the republican side of the aisle, and what she said was that she didn't want any more of her money going to taxes to pay for things like welfare, which is just a handout anyway, because people just take that money and then don't get jobs or anything, just take advantage of the rest of us hard workers.

It struck me that she was completely lacking in empathy for this imaginary group of people who are taking the tax dollars and using them as "handouts." That she couldn't put herself in the shoes of someone who needed help, and the government was the only one there with a hand to lend in tough times.

I know that there are people who take advantage of the system. That's true of any system. But for each of those people, isn't it possible that there is someone who is really helped by programs like welfare? Isn't it possible there is at least one good, well-meaning individual, who is just down on his luck? Don't you want to believe that there is good in the world, and that it manifests itself in different ways?

One of my favorite bloggers posted a theoretical question on her web site, asking whether you would give money to a family in need if you were also required to give a very bad person the same amount of money?

My answer to this question is yes. I can't imagine being turned away from help because I couldn't fill out all the forms or navigate the legal system. If you don't have empathy, I think it's hard to be a liberal, or at least someone that leans to the left. At least that is how it looks from here. I'm thankful for my empathy, even though it sometimes makes me a little nuts, myself. If people were more concerned with self-sacrifice than with self-preservation, we wouldn't be in this mess.

How do you see it? Do you think one side is more compassionate, more empathetic than the other? Does it influence how you vote? Let me know! I have a research theory idea in my head and I need some feedback.

Living With Intention

Last week at yoga, Gina, my favorite yoga teacher at Kansas Siddhi Yoga, talked to us about living our lives with intention. While living a yogic lifestyle encourages you to experience each moment without worrying about rushing to the conclusion (a principle I have written about before), we also shouldn’t just float through life without making purposeful decisions.

In yoga, this means purposefully choosing our next pose, and fully committing to it. As Gina said, if you’re just going to do something half-assed, you might as well not do it at all (sage advice from her mother on laundry folding as a child). As we worked, Gina asked us to keep in mind our purpose for coming to class that evening, and to focus on that purpose as our intention for practicing yoga for the hour.

I think I do a lot of things without a clear intention in mind. Probably most things, in fact. It is much harder to move through your day with intention, even if you do less things in the day, than it is to move through your day without really thinking about what your purpose is for each step. I go shopping without a clear purpose of what I’m looking for. I walk to the cafeteria at work feeling hungry, but without any idea what I’d like to eat. I wake up in the morning and move through the motions without giving myself a specified time for leaving the house. I sit down at my computer without a list of tasks that need to be completed for the day.

It is clear to me that doing each of these things with some sort of intention or purpose would make me more productive and less wasteful. But I think Gina was talking more about a higher purpose, and a deeper intention, spanning across the whole of our lives. A friend of mine told me this week that I seem to do a lot of thinking about my past decisions, and who I am now and how I got here, but I don't spend much time looking forward. That’s definitely true, and it made me think—I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about where I am going, and who I want to become, and what things I’d like to accomplish.

It can be easy to get bogged down in the past, and I especially like to rehash things in my head and try to determine the root cause of my issues, and of other people’s issues. My challenge for myself in the near future is to turn my thoughts the other direction, and look forward with a goal in mind, or a set of goals.

What do I want to do with my life? Who do I want to be? I feel like it’s almost a physical task to grip the sides of the tub of my thoughts and rotate it around 180 degrees. It feels like it will be sloshy and messy. I can tell it will be physically exhausting to redirect my thinking. I’m still unsure of how to begin…maybe it is with small steps.

My friend G is an excellent blogger, and she keeps a running list of her goals. I admire her stamina, and how she speaks plainly about her progress. I am also jealous of her lists, so I think I may start a list of goals, and try to develop some idea of how to head in a forwardly direction. My life goals...it sounds so broad and so...I don't know...self-helpy. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to publish them here (what if I don't succeed???), but there is at least a place to start. Wish me luck.

Rainy Days

In college, I took a couple of photography classes, because I love art, but can’t seem to get drawings or paintings to come out on paper like they are in my head. Photography always seemed like something that I could manage—I could come up with a creative idea, capture it, and it would actually manifest like I saw in my head. Not that I’m that great at it—I still luck into shots with my fancy new camera, but I’m learning.

The best part about my photography class in college was the mediocre dark room we had to work with. The equipment was ancient and cumbersome—the enlargers frequently fell off their hinges and wouldn’t adjust right, the sink didn’t drain properly, and there was little to no ventilation for the harmful processing chemicals. I loved that room. It was in the basement of the admissions building, in a corner of the art room. Totally underground, so at least the quality of the darkness was superb, if nothing else worked well.

In class, we spent our time crafting shots and working with different types of film and learning about lighting and angles and concepts. That meant that after hours was the time we had to spend in the darkroom, because there was no time for that in class. We had passes for the building that would allow us to call the security officers at any hour and they would let us in to use the darkroom.

I took this class very seriously. I had nothing to do with my major, and I didn’t even think I’d end up as a professional photographer, but it was such a great release for my creative energy, and so fun, that I used it to get away from my other studies, and to decompress.

If you’ve never manually processed film, I probably won’t be able to explain it to you very well, but here is a typical evening in the darkroom:

First, you have to develop the film itself. This step has to be done in complete darkness, or you’ll overexpose the pictures you’ve already taken. You take your little canister of film into a separate part of the darkroom, where there is absolutely no light. You crack open the canister, because when your film rewinds it gets pulled completely back into the canister. Then you wind the film onto a little stainless reel that holds the film away from itself, so that the chemicals can get completely in between each frame. You drop the reel into a stainless steel cup with a lid (kind of like a martini shaker) filled with developing chemicals and shake gently to get the chemicals to develop the film (there is a time amount involved here…I can’t remember how long it takes). When you’re finished, you dump the chemicals out and rinse the film with water to stop the development process. Oh, and this entire step is done in COMPLETE DARKNESS, so you get to practice being a blind person AND handling dangerous chemicals at the same time!

Second, you select your pictures from the negatives. This step is done out in the light, usually on a light table with a magnifier in your eye so you can see the tiny negative images. We would cut our negatives into strips to fit them into a contact sheet and circle the ones we liked with a wax pencil. I love those pencils, where you peel off the layers one by one, and your writing looks like a child’s, with the fat wax tip smashing into the plastic of the contact sheet.

Third (and this is my favorite part), you process your negatives into photographs. Using an enlarger, you project light through your negative onto a piece of unexposed photo paper. An enlarger looks kind of like a giant, clunky microscope, with a light switch. The amount of time you send light through the negative onto the paper determines the exposure of the print, but when you turn the light off, the paper still looks white, so you can’t see what it looks like until you dunk it into the processor. Our processing table was a really crudely built table with high sides, and there were plastic trays for holding the chemicals, about the size of an 8 x 12 piece of photo paper. You slide the photo into the processor and swish it around with some tongs, and the picture appears before your eyes. When it looks like you want it to, you pull the paper out of that tray and slide it into another tray filled with a chemical that stops the processing. At the end of the processing table is a sink with a trickle of running water that swirls around and drains, so that there is always clean water to wash all the chemicals off the paper.

The darkroom is lit with red lights, as to avoid exposing your paper before you get the enlarger over it. The wash sink has a slow trickle of water to continually clean the processed paper. I was usually there alone, late at night. There was an old tape player in the darkroom, and being obsessed with music and mood as I am, I made myself a mix tape to listen to as I worked. All the songs were quiet and soulful, and I can't remember very many things more peaceful than working in that room. It made me feel creative and centered, and let me be quiet and focused. I can't remember all the songs on that tape, and I lost it, or left it in someone's car.

Today I am listening to my Songs for a Rainy Day playlist, which puts me in a similar mood (though sitting at my computer working doesn't give me quite the same feeling as the old darkroom). Here are the tracks, in case you're interested:

1. "Rain All Day," Fleming and John
2. "Can You Stand the Rain," Boys II Men
3. "Raining in Baltimore," Counting Crows
4. "On the Sea," Vertical Horizon
5. "Fire and Rain," James Taylor
6. "What Have They Done to the Rain," Marianne Faithful
7. "Only When the Rain Slips In," Scarlet Road
8. "Why Does it Always Rain on Me," Travis
9. "London Rain," Heather Nova
10. "It's Not Raining," Emily Richards
11. "Oblivion," Fiona Apple
12. "Raining on the Sky," Naked
13. "You Were Meant for Me," Jewel
14. "Raindrops + Sunshine," Smashing Pumpkins
15. "The Rain Song," Continental Drifters
16. "Crying in the Rain," A-Ha
17. "Summer Rain," Emotional

Religion vs. Faith

Recently I went to a movie. Some of you are gasping right now--Kate went to a movie?

I know. I generally have a hard time sitting still for as long as a movie takes to finish--they just aren't that good, and I get annoyed by the fact that it cost 10 dollars and that the snacks were so expensive I didn't get any even though I wanted to. And there are kids not old enough to be hanging around alone all just hanging around, being silly, doing all the things their parents ask them not to. And the parking is ridiculous, and the traffic, and the waiting in line. And then I have to sit in one position until it is over, and it's usually too loud...geez I sound like a whiner.

The movie I went to see was a) at the Tivoli, which is a small theater that usually plays documentaries and independent films (which consequently means no silly teenagers), b) with a very good friend, and c) an excellent movie. It was a documentary by Bill Maher, called Religulous. And I loved it.

Bill is an atheist, and a smart-ass, so it isn't surprising that the movie was brusque and witty. There were some excellent points, some people who made themselves look like idiots, and a little big of fear-mongering at the end, but I liked it still.

What I thought was most interesting was that many of the people Bill spoke to (and he didn't stop on Christianity--besides speaking to evangelicals and Catholics, he spoke to Mormons and Muslims and Jews, and scientists of all sorts, and creationists and evolutionists, and both crazy and sane individuals) couldn't speak to why they believed whatever it was they believed.

Oh, there were plenty of scholars, who were well-versed in their subjects, and they could answer most of his questions with thought-provoking answers, but many of the people (even some of those intellectuals) couldn't say for certain why they had faith.

That intrigued me. I can't say for certain what I believe--I grew up in a Christian home and that is what I know most about, but at the moment, my yoga practice and my Sunday morning knitting sessions are the things that speak to my soul most, like I would like a religion to do, but I can't find one that espouses the beliefs I hold. I would like to think, though, if I did firmly believe in one specific doctrine, that I could at least hold up to hard questions, and answer truthfully and intelligently, but maybe that wouldn't be true.

Many of the people Bill interviewed got defensive, and didn't want to hear questions. I know a lot of people like that, who are offended by questions about their faith. If you can't listen and answer questions, and handle opposition with at least a little strength, then was your faith all that strong to begin with?

A number of the interviewees also made statements that I know weren't true. For example, one minister interviewed about the $2000 suits he wears, and all this gold jewelry, and he said to Bill: "The Bible doesn't have anything against being rich!" While Bill played a clip from some movie with a Jesus character reciting Matthew 19:24: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It was amazing to watch a man that so many people follow seem to turn the words to what suited him best.

I know people are just people, but probably one of my biggest turn-offs with Christianity is that so many Christians, leaders and followers alike, seem to go directly against the beliefs they say they hold. I just want someone who is in a position of authority in the church to be honest and open, admit when they don't know the answer, and allow me to come to my own conclusions, and then not hate me when they are different conclusions than the church would have liked.

Religion is a hard topic--worse than politics. People's faith is so rooted next to their being that most don't want to hear dissension...it eats at their core, or their soul, and that is hard to handle.

I recommend the movie--if you're not easily offended by Bill Maher confronting beliefs that you may or may not hold dear. I'm still searching, so he didn't bother me in the slightest (and of course, he is a funny guy). If you see it, let me know what you think.

On Being a Grownup

I'm almost 30.

Yikes.

I remember when 30 seemed so old. In fact, I remember when the high school kids at church seemed old. My parents hosted the youth group at our house a few times when I was little, and I thought the older kids were so cool. Their coolness felt distant, unattainable. They had such cool clothes, and good hair, and they all seemed so at ease. I figured that when I was in high school, I would seem just as stylish and saavy.

When I was a freshman in high school, I definitely didn't feel cool. We moved from out of state just a few weeks before school started, and let me tell you--starting high school without a single friend in the world was possibly one of the most frightening things I have ever done. At the end of orchestra class (sidenote: being in orchestra probably did not help my coolness factor much), I stood up and shouted, "Does anyone have third lunch period?"

The room got silent. Most of you reading this probably did not know me in junior high, but for me to stand up and expose my soul to the room like that was like a death-defying stunt. I wasn't always as outgoing and attention-seeking as I am now.

One girl, with VERY blond hair and braces, admitted to having the same lunch period as I did, so I arranged to meet her before we got our food. Her name is Amanda Rostine, and she saved my life that day, and she probably didn't even think it was that big of a deal. She turned out to be one of the coolest people I knew at both high school and college. But I digress.

As a freshman, I thought the seniors were cool, and sophisticated. I was sure that as I neared the 12th grade that I would grow into myself and begin to feel more confident, but that didn't happen. In college I felt the same way, but never really managed to feel old enough to BE one of those sophisticated, well put-together students that I was always aspiring to be.

After I graduated, I started work, and still always felt young and silly, which was multiplied by the fact that I was the newest, youngest, female member of a team of mostly older, male software engineers. My defense was (and still is) to act silly and giggly when I speak to people that are more confident or knowledgeable about something than I am, and it makes me look less intelligent than I know I am. It's a bad habit.

Recently, though, and maybe because I'm about to hit the big 3-0, I have started to feel more like myself, and less like there is anywhere for me to go to become part of that higher, cooler, more sophisticated crowd. I almost feel like I'm there, but I can't believe it took me this many years--maybe that's why it is hard to believe that 30 is just around the corner.

Now, rather than wishing I looked or felt or knew how to act older, I relish the moments when people think I'm younger than I am. Buying beer at the grocery store in my running clothes and a ponytail, drinking with friends at a bar this week, meeting someone new...when people guess me to be younger than I am I light up and beam from within.

Why is it that we spend our childhood longing to be older, and our adulthood wishing for days gone by? I don't know if it is possible to teach someone NOT to think this way, but I think if I have children, I'll try harder than just saying "When I was your age...". I think I'll teach my children to pause in each moment so they really feel, really experience everything. And I think I'll teach them yoga so they know how to focus and just be. I wish I had known how to turn my mind's eye inward when I was little...maybe I wouldn't look back so wistfully if that were the case.

Never Settle

When I was sophomore in college, a good friend of mine gave me an amazing piece of advice--one that I haven't followed as well as I would have liked. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, so I've decided I need to add it as one of my happiness commandments.

Never settle.

What my friend said to me was this: "Kate, promise me, if you are ever unhappy, at any point in your life, promise me, promise, that you'll do anything in your power to change your situation."

I wonder a lot about the people around me--do I see the world differently than other people, or are we all just afraid to really talk about what we think and feel? Sometimes I get obsessed about this feeling that there just has to be something more to life, and I wonder what's wrong with me that I can't just accept how things are and move along with the current.

I don't mean to say that people who are completely satisfied with their lives as they are today are missing anything; on the contrary, I wonder what is missing in me that I can't be satisfied with my life as it is right now. My job is stressful, and not the most fulfilling thing--I always imagined myself doing something much more creative and free-thinking. I don't feel like I take enough time to do the things I love (sometimes because of my job, but sometimes because of the number of things I have to do at home, or pure laziness). There never seem to be enough hours in the day or days in the week (well, really enough days in the weekEND).

I tried to express these feelings to someone yesterday at lunch, and I couldn't put it into words. That elusive "more" always seems to be floating just out of my view, and when I turn my head, it's gone.

As I think more and more about this new commandment, I think that it isn't so bad to feel the need to avoid settling for something--whether it is in a job, in my personal hobbies, or in my relationships with friends and family. If I can avoid settling for important things, I know I'll feel happier.

To that end, I think I have to be less worried about the approval of others (see yesterday's post for more information about that issue). Keeping myself from settling into something that isn't right for me might take actions that won't be popular. THAT is the scariest part.

Approval

Since I was very small, I have loved to be a teacher's pet. I crave approval and attention, and I try my hardest to be the best, the smartest, the most adorable, just for that tiny taste of recognition from someone else.

My mom was our girl scout troop leader when I was eight, and I remember she told me that she wasn't going to give me any special privileges because I was her daughter--she planned to treat me like any other girl in the troop. Once when she asked us all a question, I raised my hand, excited to know the answer and excited to be called upon, but mom stood her ground, and let someone else answer the question. I remember feeling crushed--I knew the answer, and she KNEW that I knew it, and even though I remembered her saying that I was just one of the group, I still felt like she should have picked me.

In fifth grade I had a friend named Sarah, who was cool and popular and funny. I'm not sure why we were friends to begin with--I think her mother was our real estate agent when we moved to North Carolina when I was nine. One day, out on the playground, Sarah told me we were going to play a joke on another girl. We were going to wear our sleeves in a really weird way, and tell this girl it was the new style, so that every time she did it, we could laugh at how dumb she was.

I personally thought this was a ridiculous idea, and that the girl was way too smart to fall for something like that, but I went along with it. "DO NOT tell her this is just a joke," Sarah said to me. The charade went along--Sarah wheeling and dealing, trying to convince this girl she knew what was all the rage on the playground these days. The girl was having none of it, and finally said she didn't care and turned to walk away. Sarah watched her for a moment, then turned around and slapped me hard in the face.

I just stood there and looked at her, stunned. "Why did you DO that?" I said, hand to my stinging face.

"You were thinking about telling her the truth," Sarah said in a vicious voice. That was true--I just wanted the whole rouse to be over with so we could go and play. I didn't get mad, though--I stared at her, then we went back in to our class, and I forgave her and forgot about it.

I still search for approval, and I'm almost 30. I want my bosses to think I'm smart and a hard worker. I want my friends to think I'm funny. I want my family to think I make good choices. Sometimes I feel like I make wrong choices, simply because they are what someone expects of me.

Where does this need for approval come from? Obviously I can remember it as far back as girl scout troop meetings, early elementary school days. Is it bad to want approval, or praise? What if I didn't care what anyone thought--I think that would make me dispassionate and listless. As it is, I worry not only what people will think of me for every step I take, but I also worry that other people don't feel praised enough, so I dish it out like ice cream. I don't want to lose the ability to make people feel good about themselves--it makes ME feel good to smile at the people who think no one is watching, or to praise or compliment a friend in a very honest way. If I didn't care what people thought, would I have that same compassion?

I don't think craving approval is bad, unless it starts to interfere with your life. For some people it might seem easy to be truly honest and say what you think, and live your life with your own purpose, but for me, it's hard, and I still struggle with the balance between needing that approval and being self-sufficient and uncaring of the world's opinion.