Category Archives: On My Mind

On My Mind

Books Are My Happy Place

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I spent the day surrounded by books and it was great.

Early in the afternoon I went to the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library and browsed around there looking for a novel. I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction this year and my roommate, noticing this, recently gave me a novel that she had just finished. I read it in a few days and loved every word. Sometimes it’s nice to get caught up in someone’s fictional life. Knowing that there will be resolution in 200 pages or so is comforting. At the library, I picked up a novel to get me through the week and put in a hold request for a political science book that I’ve been eyeing for a while. (Because understanding the world is, after all, a lot more important than understanding the convoluted family relationships of fictional characters.)

The Stephen A. Schwartzman Building, the NYPL’s research library, is across the street from the Mid-Manhattan Library and I headed over there exclusively to take pictures. As an NYPL member, I actually can take out books from the Schwartzman Building, sit and read in the gorgeous reading rooms, and conduct research. However, most of what I’ve been wanting to read lately is available through regular library circulation so I haven’t taken the opportunity to do that. (Note the word most.)

Once inside, though, I couldn’t stop smiling.

If everything the world’s religions say about  life after death is true, I want to end up in a library at the end of my time in this world. Or a bookstore. Maybe I can go the Harry Potter route and come back as a ghost! (Thinking of that, is there a Hogwarts Library ghost? Hermione would know.)

I had planned on checking out an art exhibitions today and it made sense to attend the one at the Morgan Library & Museum, which used to be JP Morgan’s personal library. There are currently exhibits on Martin Luther and Charlotte Brontë, as well as several others. My favorite part by far, however, was exploring the rooms that contained Morgan’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I kept trying to touch the spines of his thousands of volumes of various shapes and sizes, and was continuously disappointed that the museum staff had done such a good job installing glass panes to protect the books from eager fingers like mine. Illuminated manuscripts were on display everywhere, which I so love.

Being around books makes me feel warm and happy, which was perfect considering the dreary day outside. I just love the endless opportunities to learn, imagine, and step into someone else’s world for a while. There’s real magic in that.

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I’ve been adding to the reading list that I linked at the beginning of this post and I’ll hit publish on that one before 2016 is over. Keep an eye out and let me know what you’ve been reading!

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. . . . The man who never reads lives only one. – George RR Martin

On My Mind

Dance. Share love. Forgive.

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I’m not a big fan of “stuff”. The more I move around, the less I want to own things that I have to move from place to place. The less I want to own things in general, really. If I can’t or won’t transport it, whatever it is, I just don’t need it in the first place. If I haven’t worn it in a year, forgot I had it, or have other things that could substitute for it, that’s one more item I can donate to someone who might find it useful.

There are exceptions, of course. I have a few boxes of memories in my parents’ basement. Photos, dolls and children’s books I’ve been saving “for someday”, thirteen years of yearbooks, textbooks from college and graduate school that I might reference if I ever pursue a doctorate.

Overall, though, I make an effort to use what I have and think very carefully before I buy anything new. Again, there are exceptions. Namely for books.

I’ve been thinking about consumerism a lot lately because it’s that time of year where we turn from being thankful for what we have to becoming obsessed with acquiring more.

I had to laugh when I first saw this. Original from here.

Back in February I spent a long weekend in Ubud, Bali, recuperating from a week in Battambang, Cambodia with the grade ten students at my school. It was a deliciously relaxing three-day period in which I did yoga, walked for hours, ate delicious food, made photographs, read a lot, and wrote even more.

While exploring Ubud, I wandered into more than a few jewelry stores. I’ve always admired really classic pieces that are elegant, subtle, go with everything, and will never go out of style. Bali produces a lot of silver, my favorite metal because of its versatility. It took me three trips to the same store to look at the same necklace before I finally decided to buy it.

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I wore that necklace to school today and a couple of my students asked what it said. I turned over each side and read it aloud to them, “Dance. Share love. Forgive.”

Dance.

Share love.

Forgive.

Dance.

Share love.

Forgive.

Repeat.

That’s what living is all about. That’s what the holiday season, the sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas (regardless of whether you personally celebrate), really should be about.

It’s the middle of December.

People are excited about the time of year, perhaps anxious about entertaining family members and friends, finalizing travel plans, and looking for ideas of what to give those they love. We all aim for something meaningful, something that is put out on display and remembered rather than something that ends up shoved in the back of the closet, regifted, or donated. We want to express our love towards the people in our lives through actions (love is a verb!) rather than presenting our people with “stuff” in the hopes that they find a use for it. We want to do something that shows our people that we hear them, we’re listening, we’re there for them, we understand, we care.

For the last year, I’ve made donations to several organizations (including GiveWell, Against Malaria, SCI, and CARE) in honor of a number of people in my life for a variety of gift-giving occasions. All of those people have told me that they were, indeed, honored. They were glad that they’d helped others who need it, glad that they could play a role in improving society for all.

I find immense value in cultivating connections with others in our increasingly fractured world. I am willing to argue that human connection is the greatest gift we can all give or receive. Ten months ago, I bought a necklace to remind me. Today, I remembered.

Dance. We are, all of us, trying to create a world where we can live peacefully, eat well, sleep soundly, fulfill our desires, learn endlessly, and be our best selves as frequently as possible.

Share love. We have the ability to give in everything that we do. We can share anything from a smile to a good book, from an idea to a call to action. The positive things that we do for ourselves and those around us are acts of love. They are easy and cost nothing.

Forgive. We owe it to ourselves to move forward, to the greatest extent that we can. Dialogue and reconciliation about what has hurt us can free us from those feelings, form common ground from difference, and allow us to turn our energies elsewhere.

In the frenzy of the weeks ahead, I will be doing my best to remain grounded and to give what I can in the ways that I can. I encourage all of you to join me and to do the same. Together, we can create the world that we all deserve to inhabit.

To my students, today and every day, thank you for reminding me about what counts.

Who would we be if we could not sympathize with those who are not us or ours? Who would we be if we could not forget ourselves, at least some of the time? Who would we be if we could not learn? Forgive? Become something other than we are? – Susan Sontag

On My Mind

On Love, or Why I Decided to Go to Therapy

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I’m building walls again.

I thought I’d kicked the habit, but I guess not.

I’m building walls so I can hide. I’m looking for ways to feel safe, to protect myself from a constant feeling of hopelessness. I’m buildings walls that scream, “I don’t care,” because if I don’t care then I can’t hurt. If I can build my walls tall enough, if I can hide behind trap doors and drawbridges, maybe I can avoid the feeling of nakedness that comes with the deepest forms of human connection.

Because I’ve lost that connection with people I love. And I don’t know if I’m courageous enough to seek it out again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. The fluidity of how we use the word love to describe emotions about people, animals, things, and ideas. I’ve been thinking about what it means to fall in love, to be in love, to stay in love. All of those are different, and it’s fascinating to me.

Love is a verb. We never talk about that.

Along the way, that’s what I forgot. I forgot that love means doing. It’s a demonstration, physically or verbally, of becoming part of someone’s life and allowing others to become part of one’s own life. It is a way of being towards oneself and others. I think that I haven’t been very good at loving. I have certainly not been good at loving myself, which I think is why I’ve lost track of what it means to love.

I’m building walls because I’m in a process of coming to terms with my choices. And it’s hard.

I was 17 when I fell in love for the first time. The subject of my affection sat on the couch next to me, talking about something that I have since forgotten. I remember that at one point I stopped listening because my breath had caught in my throat, there were butterflies in my stomach, and I was filled with an instinctive drive to hold, protect, and give the world. I’d never felt anything like that before. Oh, I thought. This is love.

I was 18 when love brought me to tears for the first time. When I cried, it was out of despair at not being able to hold tightly enough, do enough, give enough, and adequately express all of my emotions. I was simply not ready to give up what I was giving up.

I was 21 when love scared me for the first time. I realized the feelings I’d called love had taken a different tone. They nagged, reminding me that they were not what they had once been. Those feelings had changed. I learned that with love sometimes comes rejection. I didn’t know how to respond and I didn’t know how to keep asking.

I was 22 when a coworker helped me make the connection between love as an idea and love as a verb. Love became action. It became deliberate demonstration of meaning, of care, of kindness. Love literally grew and blossomed because of attention to the way that thoughts become feelings, feelings become ideas, and ideas become actions. Love was not just evident, but tangible.

I was 24 when love scared me for the second time. I hid behind walls that love had steadily been tearing down from the time I was 17. Afraid of hurting and being hurt, I put up walls to avoid the former. I tried to forget about the latter.

At 26 I realized that I’d forgotten about a key element to love. I’d forgotten about loving myself. And as a result, I couldn’t act in love the way I needed to. All the hurt I’d hoped to avoid came crashing down and manifested in ways I never imagined.

A friend once called me guarded. I am. I have spent 26 years trying to do what is best for others. In doing so, I neglected myself.

Sometimes I remember to approach myself with compassion, which can be really difficult for me. But I have learned that without being good for myself, there is simply not enough of me to also be good for others.

So I’m trying to be good to myself. I’m trying to do what is right for me, at least when I think I know what that is. I’ve taken probably three steps back for every step forward, but at least there’s still forward momentum.

This is why I decided to go to therapy.

I decided to go to therapy because I’d reached a point where my inability to cope with the sadness I’ve been feeling in my personal life was interfering with my ability to direct my efforts towards areas that truly matter to me. Things like the state of the US right now, or developing a more peaceful world. Thinking about, learning about, discussing, and working towards change is the work I want to be doing. That’s the work that gives me the greatest sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.

I’ve been struggling to direct my energies towards that with everything else on my mind, so I’m going to therapy as a way of getting outside my own head and back into what matters.

This may be the most compassionate thing I have ever done for myself. It is also likely one of the most important.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha