motivation

A new year... a new decade... time for taking stock, time for making changes. It's what I love the most about New Year's, this motivation to look both back and ahead.

I tried to do it when the liturgical calendar changed, but without success. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." it says in Isaiah. But Advent came and went last year. Even though I thought I would be prepared, I wasn't.

While it doesn't seem right that a secular holiday will hold more sway for me than the spiritual seasons, I will take whatever inspiration where I can get it... and run with it. Life is too short and my own gets shorter every year. I have no clue how long I have. None of us does. That knowledge can be both depressing and motivating. Today it's motivating.

Taking stock:

• I spend too much time playing Happy Farm and Fish Town, even though I rationalize that these games are a way to relax and unwind. Maybe I need to rewind, not unwind. Time to look at that and either wean myself away or go cold turkey. Lent will be a perfect time for this if I don't get to it sooner.
  
  
• I have let my own personal (creative) endeavors slip-slide away. Time to set a schedule to blog on a regular basis. Time to get back to the cartoons too. I miss those little boys. They give me great pleasure and satisfaction, not to mention they make my sisters laugh.
  
  
• I noticed just this morning that my patience level has deteriorated (yet again). Maybe it's time to change the furniture around. That usually helps. That and weeding out stuff... from my closet, drawers, bookshelves. Weeding out is like getting a haircut. I feel so much lighter, less encumbered. Maybe it's some law of quantum physics the scientists have yet to discover, but getting rid of stuff actually produces energy. You think I'm crazy? Try it. No, really try it.
  
  
• Okay this is a stretch, but I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately. I think it's time to write them down.
  
  
• Just in case I've never mentioned it, here's a trivia fact about myself: five is my favorite number. I do everything in fives... latent OCD gene I imagine, but I believe it's basically harmless. So this will be number 5 in the stock-taking activity for today: I am way too bossy. This not-so-harmless-trait is going to take more work than I can even imagine. Acknowledgement is the first step. I did, I do. I'm done for today. Time to go empty some drawers... get rid of five things.

minor rant

When companies buy each other out, often the consumer is the one who loses. A few years ago, the great printer/copier mogul Xerox bought out another printer company Tektronics. I happen to be a huge fan of Tektronics printers. In the mid 90s I used a wonderful solid-wax printer at the ad agency where I worked, and when I began a free-lance business of my own, I bought the exact same model. That was January 1998. Each year I purchased the service agreement, because parts have a habit of wearing out and breaking down, and when I joined the convent I brought that printer with me. 

I was working on a project for one of the sisters when it had a major meltdown, and the technician, although he got it running again, advised me to buy the new and improved model. He explained that the model I used was not new when I bought it, had been discontinued. Parts were hard to come by, and eventually it would die. That was the summer of 2002. Since the technology had improved and prices had dropped, (don't you love when that happens?) and I still had money in the bank, I followed his advice and purchased the new printer. 

Then Xerox bought out Tektronics. Xerox has kept up the service agreement on this printer until this year. When the renewal didn't come in the mail I called them to ask why... and was informed they no longer offer a service agreement on my printer because it is obsolete. 

Just like that. The printer works fine. But six years is the limit. My apple computer (a Power Macintosh 800) from 1998 still runs like a champ. I don't use it now for anything except scanning cartoons, but when I crank it up, it works. That's ten years of faithful service by a product who's company is still apple. Not that they would fix it if it broke today... probably not.

So what's my point? I'm not sure exactly, except that we expect our products to break, to have a limited shelf life now. And I still have tools my grandmother gave me that still work after a hundred years of service.

Book Review

I'm reading a book called 36-Hour Day. Called "the definitive guide to Alzheimer's", it should probably be required reading for all baby-boomers, and their children who will end up watching them deteriorate. It's actually fascinating reading... not only because it helps me understand the odd behaviors of my aging sisters, but also because I recognize myself in the early stages of this process, even though I still function on a reasonably high level. I forget things now. I have to use spellcheck more often. It takes me longer to learn a new task, and I do things on my computer the way I've always done them, not because I can't learn new key commands, but because there's a certain satisfaction in going up to the menu and clicking "save".

I still say Alzheimer's, even though the official designation is Alzheimer Disease (without the 's). I learned Alzheimer's. It would take a lot of energy to learn it without the 's.

There's a cultural more in religious communities that explains why we do certain things the way we do: Because we've always done it that way. It confounds new sisters testing their vocations. They think it's a joke. But it is and it isn't. They cannot understand the stubbornness with which the community expects certain duties and tasks to be performed, certain rituals to be observed.

When this culture clash occurs (and it always does in some form or another) the new recruit will respond in a number of different ways: She gets angry. She argues that there is a better way. She argues that it doesn't matter. She tries to change the community's perception of how it should be done. She does it her own way in spite of the conflict. She does it the community's way but resents the hell out of it. She learns the value of doing it the way we've always done it.

Getting to that final stage... acceptance is one of the necessary steps in a sister's vocational test. Her ego must surrender to the community's established way of life. Many cannot make the leap. It's just too counter-intuitive for a normal 21st-century-conditioned woman.

With our elders, we see them less distracted and upset when they can continue to do things the way they've always done them. There's a certain security in recognizing a cup on the bathroom shelf where it's always been placed. Routine and ritual take on new meaning. The book explains all that. I recommend it.

atonement

I read the book Atonement last year. It was marvelous (if incredibly sad and depressing) so when the movie came out I didn't really want to see it. I'd just been disappointed by The Kite Runner, another incredible book that didn't quite translate to the screen. Kite Runner was excellently handled, don't get me wrong, but there was just too much in the book to cover adequately in a film... they had to leave out a lot that (I thought) mattered to the story line. I was also put off by the opening credits which reminded me of the opening credits of a Harry Potter movie... lots of superfluous animation to announce who was who.

Atonement had some of that. The typewriter effects were an underlying thread of consistency (both sight and sound) but not so overplayed I wanted to gag. I loved it. The plotline was faithful, the actors credible and the cinematography lush. The use of lighting for dramatic emphasis reminded me of Spielberg's genius. But most of all I felt the same awful sense of depression that the book evoked. All those lives ruined by one child's mistake. I hope it wins an oscar. If they have the oscars.

fragments

... Jesus went largely unnoticed during his lifetime. His closest friends were perplexed by him. John the Baptist was raising questions many months after baptizing Jesus. His impact hadn't been a blinding revelation, but a gradual, grudging discovery of fragments.

I believe that the more typical pathway to faith and new life is a journey of many steps, many false starts, many small victories over self, and a gradual embracing of God as God is. —Tom Erich

That certainly makes sense to me. Especially the gradual, grudging part. Especially the false starts and small victories part. Much as it might be cool to have a "Road to Damascus" revelation, it ain't going to happen for most of us. Experiencing God in the little ordinary moments is when I usually find strength to go on.

Last night I had supper in a little Indian restaurant a few blocks from our convent. It was Monday and a quiet night. Five-thirty is early for New York diners; nobody was in there but me. Yet the food was spectacular, the best sag I've eaten in a long time, maybe ever. I sat all by myself by the window, enthralled by the twinkling little white lights, the cut-out doilies on the tables, and the excellent food. Why was I the only one there? Shouldn't someone tell the world what a good place to eat this was?

Soft Indian music played in the background and I savored the quiet as well as the food. No more questions, no more worries... just the fragments... reminders that I don't have to fix the world. I don't even have to fix myself. Just take the precious moments when they come.

Oh, if you're ever on Broadway on the upper west side, Calcutta Cafe is at 105th. The best sag ever. (And they deliver.)

Nun's Night Out (Restaurant Review [rant])

In keeping with my "day off" mentality yesterday, I decided to go out for supper, all by myself. I passed up the usual suspects in favor of a restaurant with a tablecloth, a wine list, and privacy. I ordered two appetizers instead of an entree; both were adequate, but nothing to write home about. I was anticipating the dessert menu.

Seems to me if you name a dessert after your restaurant it ought to be spectacular. I ordered the 107 Tulipe, a concoction of vanilla bean ice cream with raspberry sauce and whipped cream served in a "delicate almond tulip shell." Now it's pretty difficult to ruin vanilla bean ice cream, and to be fair, the raspberry sauce was appropriately tart and raspberry flavored, but the "delicate shell" was hard as a rock and had not the slightest bit of almond flavor. It tasted like they had deep fried it so many times (in anticipation of someone ordering it) that the fry oil had obliterated any trace of almond or delicateness. Maybe I was supposed to look at it instead of trying to eat it, but if you advertise edible, it ought to be edible.

I had also ordered a cup of coffee. Do they not teach in cooking school that once a pot sits longer than an hour on the burner the chemical composition changes? Caffeine flavored sludge would be a more accurate menu description. My waiter was pleasant but not especially attentive. Someone else asked if I needed anything, gave me bread and refilled my water. He did show up with the check, and I had an unexpected surprise... a 20% discount for being an "early bird". Okay, so that almost covered the tulipe shell. I forked over my 20% as his tip. As mediocre as the food or service may be, I know how little these guys are paid. (I did my fair share of waitressing in my younger years.) But next time I'm going back to Subway.