The waiting room.

(Jan. 7, 2011) Someone once told Jane that life is like a series of rooms (no, not a box of chocolates; although, that would be quite delicious). Doors — they are either opening on their own, being opened or being closed by another. Jane is either being pushed through them, or she is jumping through them — sometimes right before they seal themselves shut.

Someone also told her to always try to be in the right place at the right time. And someone else told her to stay put, grow roots somewhere. But what does Jane say? What statements about living life has Jane made that have impacted others the way foreign comments have weighed on her own decisions?

Jane suggests not giving up before one begins. Don’t throw in the towel before breaking a sweat. Jane has always spoken about listening to her insides. She is an advocate for tuning in to her gut instinct and willing her head to be quiet. Jane believes that wherever she has been in life, whether she was arriving or leaving, she has been directed there.

Sometimes Jane has felt the rug pulled from beneath her in a situation that she thought was actually going to stick. The first time this happened was shocking to her. She was comfortable and happy. Or so she thought. Turns out, she wasn’t where she should have been. She was turned on her heel and facing a new path. What was Jane to do but continue in a new direction? It felt worse to force it back in the once-familiar route.

Some leave a place or take a next big step only after something they had in one place has fallen apart. But Jane suggests, don’t let things fall apart before you make a move. Instead, take it all with you, in one piece.

Now that Jane is accustomed to such occurrences in her life, she is familiar with the signs — the subtle hints that tell her to hop onto another train and ride it out until she must again switch lines. It is one thing to stay in a place because in it one has found everything she has wanted, and quite another to stay simply because it is safer than actually going out and finding what one wants.

Leaving, for Jane, can be bittersweet. The things at which she once narrowed her eyes or felt weren’t good enough begin to take a back seat to the things that stand out to not be so bad after all. And the things that used to get under her skin seem almost tolerable if she believes she has a choice to either stay or go.

Because of this, Jane likes to live each day as if she were leaving tomorrow. Not as if it is her last day alive; yet she lives it as if she won’t be in the same place forever. In the rooms of her life, Jane chooses not to sit in the waiting room hoping for her name to be called. Instead, Jane carries with her a Sawzall — and begins to create the next room that she might need.

Mother, may I?

(Dec. 31, 2010) Jane holds a photo from her childhood, the one of her father carrying her on Easter as she holds a pastel colored plastic egg in one hand and a little Easter basket in the other. Her father is dressed in brown corduroys and a blue velour top, reminding Jane that this photo was taken in the mid 1980s.

Her eyes soon dart across the room and she sees her grandmother posing in an old photo. She is sitting on top of a picnic table, smiling to whomever is on the other side of the camera. In the photo, her grandmother is at the age where she already has had her five children, probably in the middle of raising them all – the prime of her life. By the pose her grandmother strikes, it seems that she is channeling the person she was before she became a mother.

Jane then finds old photos of her mother and her father. There are pictures of them together, pictures of them apart, photos of them with Jane and her older sister, and photos of them without children – which causes Jane to pause: photos taken before she and her sister were ever a reality, possibly even before they were even the glimmer of a thought in either of her parents’ heads.

And she realizes, “Mom and dad were someone else before they became mom and dad.” And then Jane has yet another interesting thought – children put a lot of pressure on their parents to be perfect, to be the hero, to have all the right advice and to always know the answer. However, Jane admits, if she were to have a child now or five years from now, she still wouldn’t know all the answers, she wouldn’t be perfect and she might be able to offer good advice but probably still wouldn’t be able to take her own.

So, Jane wants to know: as a child, where exactly does this expectation of perfect parenting come from? Holding parents up to ridiculous levels of excellence or placing them on a pedestal may begin for some only when they are old enough to register society’s marketing of what a seemingly perfect family should look like, as reflected, or rather, dictated to us in commercials or weeknight TV shows.

Or perhaps this perfection is engrained within us from the moment we are born. Do we innately know that these are the two people who brought us into this world and because of that, our expectations abound? And then what’s to be said of the parent who tumbles off the pedestal that we have erected for them and placed them so carefully atop? Is it the child’s fault for ignoring that their parent is teetering in imbalance, a structure built on a foundation so unleveled that it is similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

As Jane puts the old photos back into storage, so go her disillusioned expectations of her mother and father that she has housed since childhood. And as she shelves both the images and the ideas, she wonders: what if these black and white comic strip sketches of mom and dad are merely drafted and simply never make it to print?

From point A to point B…

(Dec. 17, 2010) Being a visitor in New York City makes Jane want to move there. Then again, visiting Rincon, Puerto Rico also causes Jane to think seriously about finally throwing it all away and moving to a remote island. If she were to visit somewhere on the West Coast, some place in New England or a distant country that takes half a day to get there, she would probably want to move there (wherever it is) as well.

The idea of travel and exploration makes Jane consider more seriously the concept of mortality. It makes her think about the reality of limits, impermanence and the death of finality. Because there is such an eclectic array of ways to live and places to haunt, leaving isn’t such a bad thing.

Like a world traveler, her mind is packed to the brim with trinkets of her past. Her thoughts are structured like building blocks, the architecture of who she is today. Short-term jaunts connect to create one long path of twists and turns, bumps and weaves.

Jane never considered herself a flirt until she was introduced to new situations and new possibilities. Now she has crushes on the idea of hopping onto a new path of life, meeting new people, challenging herself in different ways.

And then Jane wonders, what made her believe she must leave things behind to make room for new things? Must she shed herself of her past and essentially who she is in order to try on a different role? What if she doesn’t meet the expectation of developing into the person who someone else thought she should become? What if she doesn’t turn into the person she thought she was going to be?

Now Jane ventures back to the gates that house the imaginable. From limits Jane has found no boundaries, from impermanence she revels in the cycle of change, and from the end of an era she comes to acknowledge new beginnings.

Jane teeters on the edge, ventures to the unfamiliar for the pure novelty of it all. Give her an option and she’s bound to deliberate, bound to regress — but give her impermanence and she’s bound to finally decide.

In each place Jane has visited, she finds something very special, something that makes it difficult for her to let it go. And yet, what one place might not offer, another will surely have. The enchanting notes that dance along the neighborhood streets of foreign lands entice her. “Latch on,” the wind billows as it blows through her hair. “Move in tandem,” the leaves chant as they toss in the wind.

Jane wonders if maybe it isn’t about the journey; if it is, in fact, about the destination. And people say the quickest way to reach a destination is a straight line.

 

The first to be the last.

(Nov. 19, 2010) Jane’s best friend got her 13th tattoo this weekend, and according to her, she’s stopping there. “This is either good luck, or it’s bad luck, so I’m just gonna stop here.”

As the 13th tattoo is the cartoon-like illustration of half a heart outlined in black, it seems to embody a paradox of good luck and bad luck, depending on how one looks at it.

More specifically, the tattoo is of a broken heart, and her ex-boyfriend from her adolescence houses the other half. And Jane has an inkling that the end of her friend’s tattoo era originates from her beginning of love.

Hearing the tale of their short-lived reunion, after years of having no contact at all, invites Jane to reminisce about past loves of her own. Specifically, the oldest love she can have: her first love.

As Jane recognizes that elements of the first love will always reign, she also considers how a first love will never be found again. As such, she then wonders, can one love first, twice? The first love will never be stolen, nor shared. Those who meet after their own initial first loves will never be the same as they were the first time they fell, nor will they be eager to let that experience go.

For Jane, a first love marks the first time she has ever felt unabashedly excited about a person, it is the first time she felt completely connected in an elevated sort of friendship. It is the first time she experienced betrayal, the first time she understood how gut-wrenching heartache could actually be.

A first love is the relationship that sets the benchmark for how Jane will handle future relationships. It is the last time she will be extremely vulnerable, the last time she will be naïve and the last time she will ever want to be that way again.

The first love is what all other relationships will be compared to, until finally, one settles on his or her true love. For Jane, it seems all those in between were just the buffer after her first love and before her true love. A first love marks an awakening of one’s ability to open up to someone else; a true love punctuates one’s desire to open up to no one else.

It seems to Jane that once a first love ends, it can always be revisited, but it will be forever lost.

Those who have experienced first loves share the whispered secret that an old first love may in fact be forever emblazoned within us. And with the markings of Jane’s best friend’s 13th tattoo, raises the question: exactly how permanent are the markings of an old love? And exactly who can actually see it?

Garbage: Teach your kids it’s not a dirty word.

(Nov. 12, 2010) There are many people who Jane looks up to. People who are successful, people who have struggled and come out on top — family members, best friends, high school teachers and college professors — and bosses she has worked for in the past.

Additionally, there are people who Jane hasn’t necessarily worked with, but with whom she can relate. People with jobs that are often overlooked, like the milkman, the gas station attendant, even the trash man.

And here we have it: Top Ten Things Jane has Learned from the Trash Man:

1. It’s OK to clean up other people’s trash. Jane has realized that although many people choose not to “hang their dirty laundry out in public,” there are still sticky situations and dishonorable events that take place, although concealed. At least as the trash man, you know the trash you’re dealing with.

2. With that said, sometimes you won’t want to pick up other people’s trash, yet that burden might fall on you. So slap on your jumpsuit, hop on the side of the truck and have a good old time with it, because not everything can be perfect, but everything can be embraced.

3. It can still be rewarding if people know what you do, but don’t know who you are.

4. Once a week, rid yourself of trash. Let it build up over a few days. Let it fester. Maybe even let it start to stink. But designate one day a week when you take out the trash.

5. Recycle. Don’t throw away lessons learned with the trash. Create boxes, or even caveats, where you place new things learned, hard lessons withstood and tuck them away for reuse at a later date.

6. Have the wisdom to discern which things should be recycled, the grace to accept the things that should simply be thrown out — and the knowledge to know the difference.

7. Waste not, want not. Spend your time wisely and you won’t end your days cursing the sun as it goes down … and you’ll learn to embrace the moon as it places itself high in the night sky.

8. Scented trash bags might do a good job masking the odor of trash, but a trash bag is a trash bag is a trash bag.

9. Don’t judge others for the things they enjoy, the things they keep close to them and the things they throw out. Remember, one man’s trash could be another man’s treasure. And your future could be found in someone else’s discarded past.

10. And finally, Jane has learned that if you keep a great pair of latex gloves in your back pocket, you can get yourself through any sticky situation, without ever getting your hands dirty.

 

what DO women want?

(Oct. 29,2010) There’s a question that has been passed on from generation upon generation. It extends out of the fingertips of the anxious graduate as she begins typing her resume and cover letter for her very first professional job out of school. It’s a question that whispers from the clouds, where the limit of the sky has been met.

It is the question that most wonder, but very few ask aloud. The question that nips at the back of the mind after a decision has been made: can women have it all?

And into this question Jane delves.

It seems to Jane that such a question is almost beyond the idea of feminism; it’s more like a universal truth she refuses to swallow. She has come to believe that, unfortunately, women cannot have it all. It seems to Jane that the desires of a woman are sectioned off into three distinct categories: mother, professional or wife.

In “One Fifth Avenue,” writer Candace Bushnell draws a contrast between a once high-profile lawyer and a group of women who have resigned themselves to become the wives of their businessmen husbands.

Jane wonders, since it does in fact take a certain kind of woman to become CEO of a company, Jane feels as if it is only fitting to suggest that it also takes a certain type of woman to be a wife. And when she thinks about it, she wonders, what exactly is each woman giving up in exchange for what they have gained?

As a woman is issued columns from which she can select, Jane ponders that maybe it isn’t the matter of having it all, but more of the fact that women can choose whatever they like. And what if a woman is to go as far as to actually choose from two of the columns instead of just one? Becoming a wife and a mother, or a mother and a professional — do women risk giving up one thing for another? And does this mean that women can risk losing the most important part of all: themselves? And maybe that’s the biggest trade-off.

And what of the high-powered woman who isn’t of any need to become a mother or a wife? If a woman gets a taste of independence, is it possible she can become hooked on it — too used to the independence for her own good? Is being two-parts dependent a preventative measure against a women who can stand on her own two feet — which, in turn, means never needing a crutch (or a husband or a baby)?

Finally, Jane realizes this question still cannot be answered, and taking a scrupulous look at it has raised some other questions: is it possible to be come so independent that women don’t need it all? Or, can a woman actually become a powerhouse?

 

S is for ‘solitude’.

(Oct. 22, 2010) It’s early morning, mid-October and Jane rises early to have her morning cup of tea and practice a bit of yoga before she starts her day. As she unfolds from child’s pose and moves into an inverted stretch of downward dog, she catches a glimpse of something V-shaped in the distance. As the recoils back into child’s pose, then sits upright to do some simple twists, she sees that the apparent flock of birds has gotten closer.

Switching into sun salutations and forward bends, she watches now as the mass of birds flies past her sunroom windows. As she stands in tree pose, her focal point settles on a lone bird flying solo, flying away from the V, flying in the opposite direction. As Jane gazes at this single bird, she concentrates on the idea that the birds in the V are traveling along a path that is unknown to them, but a path in which they still trust.

In similar regard, the lone bird is also following a path, one unknown to him, but one he trusts. And even more than the flock that glides along the coattails of wind currents tapering off the V formation, this single bird trusts not the flock, but himself. And what a mighty trust that is.

Going against rhyme or reason to fly toward warmer weather, it is apparent to Jane that this singular bird plans to fly where the wind takes him, quite possibly by the seat of his pants.

Thus, heading north instead of south has got Jane thinking. Perhaps the warmth is synonymous for the comforts in life that some are trained to seek; perhaps the cold is simply an inconvenience that others have been advised not to experience.

And perhaps “cold” can be interpreted as solitude and “warmth” as group mentality, or group approval, or the majority rules. More than the cold, being on one’s own has a stigma associated with it, giving Jane a chill up her spine.

And such thoughts like these probably haven’t occurred to either the flock of birds, or the lone bird — perhaps both of these divided types are following their own instincts: to follow the general consensus, or to follow no one. To have their hands held, their backs patted, to feel comfort in numbers. Or to use both hands as wings, use the strength of one’s own back for support, to find intrigue in the opposite of numbers.

It is the zero, the black sheep, the ugly duckling that is dubbed in such terms but those who cannot digest solitude. And it is through Jane’s friend, Paul, who reminded her of a statement made by John Selby that announced, “The most lonely, frustrated people I have ever worked with have not been the loners, but people who are addicted to social interaction.”

For this single bird, Jane realizes that it might not survive the cold. Or that it might simply get lost, alone in the dark night. But is it success to have survived a joint effort, or is it rather enticing to have experienced the lonely struggle?

 

What’s in a number?

(Oct. 8, 2010) Jane just received her vintage black rotary phone in the mail today. The second she got it, she held the body of the phone in her left hand, and her right hand dialed numbers. As she strung the line of numbers along the circular rotary dial, her finger stuck in each hole that coincided with the numbers 8- 3-3 and then finished with 5-1-1-9.

She listened as the 9 circled all the way up and then rolled back down again. With her right hand finished dialing, she picked up the heavy receiver. Dead air. Not even a dial tone. The phone wasn’t even plugged in — what was Jane hoping to hear? What was she wishing to connect with?

Nearing the end of her 20s, Jane has had her bout with personal losses, and has experienced others’ losses of those close to them. The one that haunts her the most is the passing of her grandmother more than 15 years ago. And this black rotary phone is just like the phone her grandmother used to have. It’s the phone she used when staying at her grandparents’ house. Since it was their house phone, Jane was repeatedly told to hang up the phone and that it wasn’t a toy. She hadn’t realized that while she was playing “office” with the phone off the hook that someone might have been trying to get through.

Other memories Jane associated with this phone were just the thought of her grandmother on the other end of it, answering when Jane called just to say hello. Pieces of her grandmother’s wisdom that Jane has tucked in her back pocket all started and ended with the conversations had between the two of them on that black rotary phone.

After her grandmother’s unexpected passing, Jane recalls sitting on the other end of her home phone, calling that same number and listening to it ring on the other end, imagining the black rotary phone on the table by the back window, screaming through the silent house, until Jane finally hung up the call.

There are certain things that remind individuals of the people they have lost. Seeing these things can trigger intense nostalgia, like Jane’s rotary phone. Other times, Jane can meet a person or get a new pet and feel the energy associated with a deceased relative or an old friend. Past relationships can be reminiscent of new encounters. Sometimes, Jane feels as if she lost this person for some time, but in this meeting they can be found again.

And this vintage black rotary phone might not be the exact same phone that was at her grandmother’s house, but what she remembers of her grandmother’s phone is encapsulated in the phone that sits on Jane’s writing desk now.

Sometimes things don’t have to be connected. Sometimes contacting someone the same way Jane was used to just isn’t the way to get through anymore. Jane’s phone still sits on her desk, unplugged. But she talks to her grandmother every day.

 

Proving grounds.

(Oct. 1, 2010) There exists an interesting place. More of an idea than a location; more of an enigma than a solution — a pivotal point in Jane’s life where she had to make a choice to carry on as she has been, or, turn it all around.

Before now, there was a distinct time in Jane’s life when she knew she wasn’t on a path that was right for her. Before she was beckoned to beach life, beckoned back to her roots, she was blindly making decisions almost as though she simply had to.

Like taking too many steps in numerous relationships that were the exact opposite of good for her and staying for far too long in way too many jobs that she wasn’t passionate about. Although she received some standard securities like paychecks and health insurance, along with some serious technology perks, Jane will always see herself during those times as the walking dead.

How can one be only half-alive when given money, structure and security? And if she could admit that she actually wasn’t fulfilled, that these things weren’t the missing pieces of her bewilderment, then what was the matter with everyone else? Or, at the time, Jane of course asked what was the matter with her?

So, in tried and true fashion that has existed and perfected its way over the many, many years of our enigmatic existence, something greater than her had reached down onto Jane’s path and meddled in it. The way in which such changes like these come about aren’t without conflict, they are not accepted without restraint and the truth does not go silently into the night.

Chuck Palahniuck illustrates in his book, “Invisible Monsters,” “This is how I found the strength not to get on with my former life. This is how I found the courage not to pick up the same old pieces.” And these are the proving grounds.

As the carpet was pulled from beneath Jane and her direction was changed in the same abrupt manner in which a boomerang decides at that exact moment that it will now head back in the direction from which it came, she found herself back on the road that she took from childhood, back on the road she had veered off of in order to become an adult.

Finally back at the beach, finally back with her aunts and uncles and mother and grandfather, finally passing by where she once worked an umbrella stand on 33rd Street, and passing by past places of employment, Jane felt a comfortable stirring of familiarity along Coastal Highway.

For some, these might not be the makings of dreams, but they are the makings of Jane’s reality. For her, the question isn’t “What do you do?” rather than “Are you happy?” And it isn’t so much about whom she is with as much as it matters whether or not she can be OK on her own.

And finally, after a certain amount of time spent struggling with herself, Jane has relinquished herself to a reflective state in her life where she sits on the beach for hours on end, gazing at the ocean’s waves, contemplating the flight of an Osprey as it catches a wind current, coasting along its own natural path. Finally, she has surrendered to her own proving grounds.

winds of change

On a rainy fall afternoon in mid-September, Jane took a stroll around her new neighborhood. Glancing into the sunrooms of the neighboring town homes, Jane noticed that some of the houses’ summer furniture had been covered with sheets, the windows had been closed, the curtains had been drawn — signaling the end of a season, a return back to their respective winter homes.

Recognizing such ceremonious acts alongside the mass exodus of those in town for the summer caused Jane to take a closer look at herself. What a strange realization it is to inhabit a house, a neighborhood, or a town on a yearround, more permanent basis while others leave it behind.

And this got Jane thinking. Apparently, home is relative to where one chooses it. And all things — all experiences and all occasions — are, in fact, impermanent.

No matter Jane’s temporarily permanent location, there seems to exist a cycle of life, and it doesn’t have to do with negating the existence of others for one’s own survival. It simply has to do with passing through. Visitors comb through Jane’s town and after they’ve left her nest, Jane, in turn, journeys to another’s permanent place of residence to wheel and deal the business of her life.

For Jane, it feels as if she exists within two perspectives at one time. Which means, perhaps, that Jane is seasonal, too. No matter the permanent fixture and life she desires to create, it’s all fleeting, isn’t it?

Growing up, Jane used to rearrange her bedroom every few weeks. And maybe that was her unfiltered urge to move with the seasons, adjust with the passing of time. If Jane doesn’t move and doesn’t wander along the path where she can outstretch her arms, wouldn’t that threaten her existence to become similar to Alice in Wonderland?

To grow beyond the walls of that which helped her develop, it seems that she’d be cursing her own internal growth by not expanding her surroundings to fit her expanding wingspan.

Yet, as Jane continues to walk around her neighborhood, she finds that she takes a bit of solace in the idea of staying put, the idea of accepting that her home may be in this place. And what if to fly, one can actually keep their feet on the ground; and what if to grow, one may actually not outwardly expand?

What if for this time, and perhaps this time only, Jane can actually wash her hands of the migratory relocation of those around her, jam her hands into her pockets, feel the soles of her feet flatly resting on the surface of her driveway? What if Jane were to contemplate that although she may be seasonal, in time the sheet will be pulled over the story of her own life, for once she is able to journey by standing still and enjoy the scenery as the winds and the colors of the leaves change while she shuts the door to her new home and looks out on life from its windows.