Everyone sometimes smiles at strangers, if they happen to make eye contact.
I smiled at a lady stranger recently and her response was to shut her eyes very tightly and turn her face away.
I just didn't know what to make of it.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Not So Busy
While I love the onset of autumn, I dread the approach of fall. The one is a season of crisp weather, crunchy leaves, apple picking and pumpkin lattes. The other is the return of Life in full force...with all its tight schedules, deadlines, and demands.
I updated my weekly calendar this morning, and ever since I've been battling the temptation to crawl under my desk and hide my head under my cardigan. Leaving aside my full time job, there are the five high school seniors who will be wanting my attention to their English, Religion, and Government papers, as well as monthly half-hour phone calls; the CCD class JM and I will be leading; the youth group I've promised to help out with at least once a week on Wednesday nights; the piano students on Saturday mornings; the women's Bible study I finally (and I think rightly...but time will tell) signed up for; the women's singing group I'm trying to organize on a monthly basis; and the writing exercises I have set for myself as a kind of challenge. The complaint never changes, and it seems to grow a little louder and more panicked each year: "I'm so busy."
We're all so busy. But here I make myself accountable, oh readers: there are some good, leisurely things I intend to do this school year, despite the fullness of my calendar. Like apple picking one Saturday morning in October...at least a little bit of hiking (or a long bike ride) one weekend afternoon in November...an afternoon of making and sending Christmas cards in early December...and now and again spending quality time with good friends, either enjoying dinner at my apartment or meeting up somewhere in town for coffee and good conversation. I'm not so busy that I can't spend quality time doing simple, fun things with the people I like best. And if I get to that point of being busy, then I'll have to make some serious cuts in my calendar of commitments.
So friends, I promise: no complaints of being "so busy." I'm busy enough to keep on my toes, and just "un-busy" enough to snatch a few precious moments of leisure to spend just as I like. I refuse to spend the next seven months running with such frenzied haste that I forget to stop and enjoy the moment.
Here's to the coming autumn. Here's to (*gulp*) the coming fall.
I updated my weekly calendar this morning, and ever since I've been battling the temptation to crawl under my desk and hide my head under my cardigan. Leaving aside my full time job, there are the five high school seniors who will be wanting my attention to their English, Religion, and Government papers, as well as monthly half-hour phone calls; the CCD class JM and I will be leading; the youth group I've promised to help out with at least once a week on Wednesday nights; the piano students on Saturday mornings; the women's Bible study I finally (and I think rightly...but time will tell) signed up for; the women's singing group I'm trying to organize on a monthly basis; and the writing exercises I have set for myself as a kind of challenge. The complaint never changes, and it seems to grow a little louder and more panicked each year: "I'm so busy."
We're all so busy. But here I make myself accountable, oh readers: there are some good, leisurely things I intend to do this school year, despite the fullness of my calendar. Like apple picking one Saturday morning in October...at least a little bit of hiking (or a long bike ride) one weekend afternoon in November...an afternoon of making and sending Christmas cards in early December...and now and again spending quality time with good friends, either enjoying dinner at my apartment or meeting up somewhere in town for coffee and good conversation. I'm not so busy that I can't spend quality time doing simple, fun things with the people I like best. And if I get to that point of being busy, then I'll have to make some serious cuts in my calendar of commitments.
So friends, I promise: no complaints of being "so busy." I'm busy enough to keep on my toes, and just "un-busy" enough to snatch a few precious moments of leisure to spend just as I like. I refuse to spend the next seven months running with such frenzied haste that I forget to stop and enjoy the moment.
Here's to the coming autumn. Here's to (*gulp*) the coming fall.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
This Is A Fun Thing To Do.
Attention Everyone:
Ask Mary Beth how she feels about the metro system in Washington, D.C.
This will stimulate conversation for the next eight minutes and forty-four seconds.
This is especially useful if she is at a boring party with you and you want to promote discussion among the guests.
The effects of this conversation on the recipient may vary. Side effects include, but are not limited to: acquiring knowledge of the union and union members, increased/decreased appreciation for the union and union members, annoyance, anger, boredom, and genuine interest. *
*1% of recipients have experienced true happiness, though whether this symptom is a result of this conversation remains unconfirmed.
If anger persists 24 hours after the discussion, contact your physician.
This is safe for pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding.
Ask Mary Beth how she feels about the metro system in Washington, D.C.
This will stimulate conversation for the next eight minutes and forty-four seconds.
This is especially useful if she is at a boring party with you and you want to promote discussion among the guests.
The effects of this conversation on the recipient may vary. Side effects include, but are not limited to: acquiring knowledge of the union and union members, increased/decreased appreciation for the union and union members, annoyance, anger, boredom, and genuine interest. *
*1% of recipients have experienced true happiness, though whether this symptom is a result of this conversation remains unconfirmed.
If anger persists 24 hours after the discussion, contact your physician.
This is safe for pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding.
Friday, April 16, 2010
"To thine own self be true."
It's time for a new post. It's time to write about something pithy and relavant. It's time to write about anger.
Yes, anger. That gut-boiling, rousing, unavoidable (if you're living in this city, anyway) emotion. I remember as a kid I used to get angry all the time. My siblings made me angry. Banging my toe or my elbow against hard objects made me angry. Bullies made me angry, especially when they made my sisters cry. I responded to these situations with indignation, with raised voice and that funny adrenaline rush that starts in the pit of your stomach. I felt, in all these situations, that I had the right to be angry, and so I threw myself into the emotion whole-heartedly, arms swinging, ready to stand by my conviction of rectitude or die in the fight.
And then I got to adolescence and the early, painful lessons of sociability and not always being justified in your anger. I learned that there are, indeed, two sides to every argument, and it's not always the case that one side is 100% right while the other is 100% wrong. In fact, that's almost never the case. So I started to question, and eventually to swallow, my anger, because I realized it wasn't always as just as I liked to suppose. By the time I graduated from college, I was a full-blown pacifist. Now, as a young professional, I'll give up almost any argument for the sake of maintaining peace and avoiding raised voices. I'm never confident that my position is 100% right. And as soon as the other person presents an argument with even the slightest bit of relavance, my confidence level drops and drops, until I'm almost completely sure that his side is the right one, and I just need to get over my own opinion. So I shut up and back off--but this doesn't mean that I'm not still angry.
It just means I'm constantly angry, like a pot with the lid on, and the water simmering but never going anwhere.
Day after day, I let people argue me into submission. I let people dictate my opinions and reactions to things, because I hate confrontation, because I'd rather avoid raised voices and sitting at home at the end of a long day, fully aware that so-and-so is angry with me. Because I want, more than anything else, to be liked. Even more absurd, I want to be liked even by people I don't like.
So coworkers tell me how to do my job, even after two years, and instead of smiling and letting them know--as kindly as possible, of course--that I've got it under control, I apologize and conform. Strangers on the metro or in line at the grocery store shove and glower, despite all my best efforts to stay out of their way, despite my (I hope) friendly smiles. Hardest of all are the people I do know. I have recently discovered that I cannot be everyone's friend. Nor do I wish to be. In fact, there are certain people I would love to "show the door" in my life in a very concrete way, but I'm afraid to do so. Why? Because those people would dislike me, and I don't know if I could stand that.
I've ran smack up against the real world, and I'm learning that here you have to fight for your place, or you'll get bowled over. And I don't mean this in a "survival of the fittest" sort of way, either. I just mean that you truly have to be vigiliant and firm, or you run the risk of losing your foothold in your own life. You have to work, day after day, to carve out a space for yourself in your own life. Otherwise you run the risk of letting everyone around you dictate your activities, your schedule, and your opinions--even (and most insidiously) your opinions about yourself.
Maybe I'm still an okay person, even if so-and-so is mad at me.
Maybe it's more honest to quietly excuse people from my life than to allow this anger to simmer against them day after day, until I can't say a kind word or think a kind thought about them, and my every word to them is a veiled insult or a snide comment.
And maybe, when it comes right down to it, the most important thing really is to be true to yourself. Without forgetting others and their needs, without threatening the space to which others cling so tenuously in their own lives, without breaking the prescriptions of Christian charity, maybe the old cliche has it right. Because, in the end, if you can't be true to yourself--who can you be true to?
Yes, anger. That gut-boiling, rousing, unavoidable (if you're living in this city, anyway) emotion. I remember as a kid I used to get angry all the time. My siblings made me angry. Banging my toe or my elbow against hard objects made me angry. Bullies made me angry, especially when they made my sisters cry. I responded to these situations with indignation, with raised voice and that funny adrenaline rush that starts in the pit of your stomach. I felt, in all these situations, that I had the right to be angry, and so I threw myself into the emotion whole-heartedly, arms swinging, ready to stand by my conviction of rectitude or die in the fight.
And then I got to adolescence and the early, painful lessons of sociability and not always being justified in your anger. I learned that there are, indeed, two sides to every argument, and it's not always the case that one side is 100% right while the other is 100% wrong. In fact, that's almost never the case. So I started to question, and eventually to swallow, my anger, because I realized it wasn't always as just as I liked to suppose. By the time I graduated from college, I was a full-blown pacifist. Now, as a young professional, I'll give up almost any argument for the sake of maintaining peace and avoiding raised voices. I'm never confident that my position is 100% right. And as soon as the other person presents an argument with even the slightest bit of relavance, my confidence level drops and drops, until I'm almost completely sure that his side is the right one, and I just need to get over my own opinion. So I shut up and back off--but this doesn't mean that I'm not still angry.
It just means I'm constantly angry, like a pot with the lid on, and the water simmering but never going anwhere.
Day after day, I let people argue me into submission. I let people dictate my opinions and reactions to things, because I hate confrontation, because I'd rather avoid raised voices and sitting at home at the end of a long day, fully aware that so-and-so is angry with me. Because I want, more than anything else, to be liked. Even more absurd, I want to be liked even by people I don't like.
So coworkers tell me how to do my job, even after two years, and instead of smiling and letting them know--as kindly as possible, of course--that I've got it under control, I apologize and conform. Strangers on the metro or in line at the grocery store shove and glower, despite all my best efforts to stay out of their way, despite my (I hope) friendly smiles. Hardest of all are the people I do know. I have recently discovered that I cannot be everyone's friend. Nor do I wish to be. In fact, there are certain people I would love to "show the door" in my life in a very concrete way, but I'm afraid to do so. Why? Because those people would dislike me, and I don't know if I could stand that.
I've ran smack up against the real world, and I'm learning that here you have to fight for your place, or you'll get bowled over. And I don't mean this in a "survival of the fittest" sort of way, either. I just mean that you truly have to be vigiliant and firm, or you run the risk of losing your foothold in your own life. You have to work, day after day, to carve out a space for yourself in your own life. Otherwise you run the risk of letting everyone around you dictate your activities, your schedule, and your opinions--even (and most insidiously) your opinions about yourself.
Maybe I'm still an okay person, even if so-and-so is mad at me.
Maybe it's more honest to quietly excuse people from my life than to allow this anger to simmer against them day after day, until I can't say a kind word or think a kind thought about them, and my every word to them is a veiled insult or a snide comment.
And maybe, when it comes right down to it, the most important thing really is to be true to yourself. Without forgetting others and their needs, without threatening the space to which others cling so tenuously in their own lives, without breaking the prescriptions of Christian charity, maybe the old cliche has it right. Because, in the end, if you can't be true to yourself--who can you be true to?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A Happy Ending
My mother sent me a brand new pair of leather gloves to replace the lost ones! Hooray! Thanks, Mom.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
An apology
Realizing that my last three (!!) posts have been on issues romantic, I promise that my next post will be all about our amazing little apartment. I just want to have some photographs to share first. And possibly a sofa...
Self-Discovery in Its Many Awkward Forms
This past weekend was one of those weekends of self-revelation. I spent a good portion of it by myself--almost always a recipe for disaster in terms of self-discovery--and I had to giggle at the lesson in my own personality which I took away from those forty-eight hours: I do not respond well to pick-up lines.
It's not that random friendly attempts at conversation from men I don't know set me on edge. Believe it or not, I don't unleash streams of vitriol at the men who come at me with their somewhat awkward, always unsolicited overtures of interest. To be honest, I don't even (in general) find them all that annoying. Perhaps because they're so new to me, I'm still rather touched by the notice when it occurs. (And it doesn't often.) The trouble is, I just don't know what to do with it.
Now maybe this comes about as the logical result of living my teenage years (you know, "sweet 16" and all that, when most girls are learning the gentle arts of...well...being girls) secure in the conviction that I would be a nun, and that I could therefore leave all that ridiculous "girl stuff" to my friends and sisters. As a college student I'd come through that conviction well enough, but I'm afraid I'd missed something on the old boy front. Men? What the heck are those? That's been my typical response to all things of the "boy-girl-girl-boy" variety for pretty much my entire young adult life. It's only in very recent years that I've even stumbled across some semblence of a sense of fashion, for goodness' sake.
Whatever the reason(s), the sad truth remains that when I'm faced now with masculine interest of just about any variety (except, "Hey lady, you're in my way" or "Hey baby," to both of which I respond without hesitation or difficulty, and always appropriately), I simply do not know how to react. And so, in typical Mary Beth fashion, as a rule I just don't act. I put on my kindest, most distant smile, respond with as few words as are civilly permissible, and withdraw.
And think of all the clever, open, engaging things I should have said later.
Saturday morning gave me my first glimmer of this truth about myself. I had several hours free to grade some MODG student work before my one piano lesson for the day, so I betook myself to Panera where I indulged in a breakfast sandwich and a cup of tea as I read 12th grade Government papers. I had a seat next to a window overlooking their outdoor seating area, and occasionally I'd glance up and watch people go by. At one point, a youngish man took a seat at one of the outdoor tables with a mug of coffee and a copy of In Conversation with God. I thought, "Hmm, that's a neat idea. Bring your spiritual reading to Panera." And I went back to grading. After a few minutes I guess he decided it was too cold outside for reflection, because he got up and brought his beverage and his reading materials into the restaurant, making a beeline for the booth that was right behind my table. I glanced up, caught his eye (not on purpose, lest you get the wrong idea, oh readers), and smiled a polite and (I hoped) distant smile. He walked past, and then I heard a distracted, very apologetic, "I'm sorry" at my elbow.
I turned. He had set his books down and was now looking at me with an almost sad expression on his face. "Sorry?" I thought. "Good gracious, for what?" But all I said was, "Excuse me?"
"I love your miraculous medal," he replied.
(The first thought that flashed through my mind was: email forward--"Did you feel what I felt when we dipped our hands in the holy water together?" And it was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.)
And I said: "Oh, thanks," and went back to grading.
"The young man went away sad"... or relieved...or both.
And then Sunday. I drove out to Reston to see Katie and Sam and Katie's family at her parents' house. I went out early and stopped at Reston Town Center (for reasons which I am not at liberty to divulge, but they involved a particular party's birthday). Having an hour to kill after my errands were finished, I stopped in at Starbucks, purchased a brownie (to celebrate Sunday) and a coffee, and sat down to read a bit of the novel I'm currenty working through, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night. I settled myself in the quietest corner of the very busy coffee shop, near an older man who was filing taxes and a youngish (I say "ish" because, while I'm relatively certain he couldn't have been a day over 35, his hair was almost entirely gray. But he wasn't bad looking at all...not that I noticed, of course) man doing work of some variety on a lap top.
I read without interruption for a good twenty minutes. It was beautiful. Reading Fitzgerald is like having a love affair with the English language. And then It Happened. The youngish fellow stopped his work and stretched and looked at his watch, and almost simultaneously with a very large and (I'm sure) gratifying yawn asked, "How's Fitzgerald treating you?" I had the initial impression that his question was directed at the wall above my head, so I almost didn't reply. Then I realized the guy was grinning at me.
So I put on my best closed-face, "I'm sure you're very nice, but I don't know you from Adam and I definitely don't know what to say to you" smile and replied, "Good. I love it."
"Well, I have a dictionary in here," he picked up a blackberry from the table and waved it in the air, "if you need it. Fitzgerald was one of the most pedantic authors of all time." Given my love of Fitzgerald's crafting of the English language, I can't quite agree with that description. I did, however, have to admire a guy who uses the word "pedantic" in normal conversation. Not sure what to say, I nodded and said, "Thanks! Hey, that's why I read him."
And returned to reading. Conversation: dead in the water. Five minutes later I gathered my things and left.
This does not bode well for my future life, does it?
It's not that random friendly attempts at conversation from men I don't know set me on edge. Believe it or not, I don't unleash streams of vitriol at the men who come at me with their somewhat awkward, always unsolicited overtures of interest. To be honest, I don't even (in general) find them all that annoying. Perhaps because they're so new to me, I'm still rather touched by the notice when it occurs. (And it doesn't often.) The trouble is, I just don't know what to do with it.
Now maybe this comes about as the logical result of living my teenage years (you know, "sweet 16" and all that, when most girls are learning the gentle arts of...well...being girls) secure in the conviction that I would be a nun, and that I could therefore leave all that ridiculous "girl stuff" to my friends and sisters. As a college student I'd come through that conviction well enough, but I'm afraid I'd missed something on the old boy front. Men? What the heck are those? That's been my typical response to all things of the "boy-girl-girl-boy" variety for pretty much my entire young adult life. It's only in very recent years that I've even stumbled across some semblence of a sense of fashion, for goodness' sake.
Whatever the reason(s), the sad truth remains that when I'm faced now with masculine interest of just about any variety (except, "Hey lady, you're in my way" or "Hey baby," to both of which I respond without hesitation or difficulty, and always appropriately), I simply do not know how to react. And so, in typical Mary Beth fashion, as a rule I just don't act. I put on my kindest, most distant smile, respond with as few words as are civilly permissible, and withdraw.
And think of all the clever, open, engaging things I should have said later.
Saturday morning gave me my first glimmer of this truth about myself. I had several hours free to grade some MODG student work before my one piano lesson for the day, so I betook myself to Panera where I indulged in a breakfast sandwich and a cup of tea as I read 12th grade Government papers. I had a seat next to a window overlooking their outdoor seating area, and occasionally I'd glance up and watch people go by. At one point, a youngish man took a seat at one of the outdoor tables with a mug of coffee and a copy of In Conversation with God. I thought, "Hmm, that's a neat idea. Bring your spiritual reading to Panera." And I went back to grading. After a few minutes I guess he decided it was too cold outside for reflection, because he got up and brought his beverage and his reading materials into the restaurant, making a beeline for the booth that was right behind my table. I glanced up, caught his eye (not on purpose, lest you get the wrong idea, oh readers), and smiled a polite and (I hoped) distant smile. He walked past, and then I heard a distracted, very apologetic, "I'm sorry" at my elbow.
I turned. He had set his books down and was now looking at me with an almost sad expression on his face. "Sorry?" I thought. "Good gracious, for what?" But all I said was, "Excuse me?"
"I love your miraculous medal," he replied.
(The first thought that flashed through my mind was: email forward--"Did you feel what I felt when we dipped our hands in the holy water together?" And it was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.)
And I said: "Oh, thanks," and went back to grading.
"The young man went away sad"... or relieved...or both.
And then Sunday. I drove out to Reston to see Katie and Sam and Katie's family at her parents' house. I went out early and stopped at Reston Town Center (for reasons which I am not at liberty to divulge, but they involved a particular party's birthday). Having an hour to kill after my errands were finished, I stopped in at Starbucks, purchased a brownie (to celebrate Sunday) and a coffee, and sat down to read a bit of the novel I'm currenty working through, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night. I settled myself in the quietest corner of the very busy coffee shop, near an older man who was filing taxes and a youngish (I say "ish" because, while I'm relatively certain he couldn't have been a day over 35, his hair was almost entirely gray. But he wasn't bad looking at all...not that I noticed, of course) man doing work of some variety on a lap top.
I read without interruption for a good twenty minutes. It was beautiful. Reading Fitzgerald is like having a love affair with the English language. And then It Happened. The youngish fellow stopped his work and stretched and looked at his watch, and almost simultaneously with a very large and (I'm sure) gratifying yawn asked, "How's Fitzgerald treating you?" I had the initial impression that his question was directed at the wall above my head, so I almost didn't reply. Then I realized the guy was grinning at me.
So I put on my best closed-face, "I'm sure you're very nice, but I don't know you from Adam and I definitely don't know what to say to you" smile and replied, "Good. I love it."
"Well, I have a dictionary in here," he picked up a blackberry from the table and waved it in the air, "if you need it. Fitzgerald was one of the most pedantic authors of all time." Given my love of Fitzgerald's crafting of the English language, I can't quite agree with that description. I did, however, have to admire a guy who uses the word "pedantic" in normal conversation. Not sure what to say, I nodded and said, "Thanks! Hey, that's why I read him."
And returned to reading. Conversation: dead in the water. Five minutes later I gathered my things and left.
This does not bode well for my future life, does it?
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