Henry, Mariette, and Me

I woke up yesterday, Saturday, in a state of utter exhaustion, feeling rejected and somewhat depressed. I emailed a friend who I had plans to see and said that I was on the brink of getting a migraine and was going to opt out of getting together.

Still, it turned out to be a very interesting day…which happens to be the reason I just love life: you get up in the morning and never have any idea, really, of what’s going to happen.

I had started the week out on Monday by interviewing for a job in Portland…a position that had great appeal for me. I was supposed to find out on Friday if I had made it to the finalist stage. I didn’t hear a thing, so I suspected I was due for a rejection letter or phone call sometime soon. Having lived in a state of limbo and sleeplessness for the week, as the weekend arrived, I was very tired. And, now, I was trying to cope with my rejection issues.

Somehow, I thought, I’ll be able to recover and move on…though it may take awhile.

But the day, yesterday, as I have suggested, was not all negative.

Henry Aaron hitting home run No. 715 on April 8, 1974.

When NPR Weekend Edition was on, I listened to Scott Simon interview Howard Bryant (of ESPN.com, and Weekend Edition sports commentator) about his latest book The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron. Having grown up in Wisconsin in the 50s and 60s listening to, and a fan of, Milwaukee Braves baseball (and Hank Aaron in particular), I was excited to learn of this new book. I knew I had to have it, and have it now.

Therefore, I was moved to show up at the nearest Borders store in the afternoon at around 1:30. As I walked into the store, I noticed a couple of posters announcing that actress Mariette Hartley was scheduled to appear at 2:00 p.m. for a “conversation and signing” of her book Breaking the Silence. (The newly-self-published, recycled version of her 1990 best-seller.)

Hmmmmm, I thought. Mariette Hartley. I wonder what she looks like these days.

Well, moving on, I proceeded to find the Aaron biography, and carried it around while I browsed the fiction section; I also selected an Anita Shreve novel to take home, and then proceeded to navigate the long line at the checkout counter.

It was just turning 2:00 when I exited the store. As I was passing by the big front windows, I spied Mariette Hartley sitting at a table facing a part of the room where about 20 or so chairs were set up…and totally empty. No one wants to see Mariette Hartley?, I thought. Incredible.

I took my purchases to the car and then went back into the store. There were now two women sitting in the front row, chatting a bit with Hartley, but that was the sum total of the audience. Hesitantly, I approached and took a seat in the second row.

Hartley looked at me and smiled as I sat. It was a couple of minutes after 2:00, and she asked a store employee how to proceed, and was informed that “it’s your show.”

“Well, let me just start out by reading a little bit and then we can go from there,” she said to the three of us.

So, read she did: perhaps a couple of pages. She then talked a little bit more about her grandfather, her parents (her father’s suicide and her mother’s alcoholism), and her own mental illness (bipolar disorder). First one, then the other, of the two women in the front row asked some questions. She ultimately turned to me and asked, “what’s your name?”

“Jim,” I said. “And I do have a question. You mentioned a minute ago that your mother ‘swore you to secrecy.’ I guess you were talking about your father’s suicide? How long did you keep that information locked inside?”

With a deep intake of breath she hesitated, and then said, “oh, my..I think you’re going to make me cry.”

And, really, it didn’t seem like she was acting.

We continued talking a little bit longer, during which time more of her story emerged. I then said, “you know, I’m pretty amazed at how this day is turning out. I came into the store this afternoon because I was in search of the new Henry Aaron biography, which I heard about on NPR this morning, and I end up talking to Mariette Hartley about the intimate details of her life. How great is this? It looks like I’ll be taking home a biography and an autobiography this afternoon.”

She was very pleased that I was going to buy the book, and then signed it for me.

On the dedication page which says,

To my beloved family –
past present, and future

she wrote,

To dear Jim!
Bless you and your beloved family –
Lovingly
Mariette Hartley

Then she stood up and gave me a big (and genuine) hug…something, on this day, I really needed…and appreciated.

(Oh, by the way, at age 69, she still looks totally great.)

Today, again, I’m smiling.

Not A Rejection

Dear TechnoMonk,

Thank you for submitting an essay to This I Believe. Your essay has now completed our review process. Though your essay was not chosen for broadcast on NPR, the larger goal of our project is to open a community conversation about belief--one essay at a time. To that end, we have placed your essay in the This I Believe online database.

If you go to our website at http://www.thisibelieve.org/, then click on “Advanced Essay Search,” fill in only your last name in the “Last Name” field. You can also find your essay by searching all essays from [Larkspur, CA]. You will notice that only your first name will be seen on the web page with your essay. We do not publish last names or other personal information on our website.

Please don’t consider this in any way a “rejection.” Our criteria for broadcast consider many factors beyond subjective notions of quality. We air only a fraction of one percent of those submitted, and we must balance our few selections across themes, perspectives, diversity of sources, and so on.

Though your essay has not been selected for NPR, we are working to find other venues to publish some of the many thousands of essays we have received, including newspapers, podcasts, and local public radio stations. Should we find a venue to print or broadcast your essay, one of our staff will be in touch with you.

We are honored by your having shared your most closely held convictions with us. Thank you, sincerely, for participating in our project.

On Being Present

Inspired by NPR’s This I Believe series...

I’ve always prided myself on my openness, my honesty, and my emotional availability. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve frequently received favorable comments regarding these qualities. This despite the fact that I’m a guy and I know lots of men (maybe most) who have absolutely no clue what the term “emotional availability” might mean. Or how to invoke it.

These particular traits are consistent with the guiding philosophy of my life, namely: I believe in being present. In expressing this belief, I’m talking about something a lot deeper than Woody Allen’s quip of “showing up is 80 percent of life.” No: I intend something decidedly more profound — of much greater difficulty level — than simply being physically located in a particular place at a particular time.

In truth, I believe that being present is the secret of life: that without the ability to be present, I’d really be missing out on what the total human experience has to offer. Being present takes energy, though, so it’s likely the reason that most people avoid it, don’t practice it, and just generally find some other way to go about their business.

The way I see it, being present is manifested both in my relationship to self and my relationship to others.

In my relationship to self, being present means that I’m aware in the moment. I’m tuned in to my emotions. I know that I’m breathing in and out. I have a keen sense of my surroundings. I sense all that’s going on around me and what kind of meaning I’m making of these events: realizing that my experience is not necessarily “reality.” Being present means that I’ve left all previous moments behind...and that I’m not wasting energy anticipating future ones. It’s living in the here and now. It’s making the most of the time I have been given. It’s a paradigm that guides me to take advantage of every single instant of this preciousness called life.

I also believe, however, that the highest level of being present takes the form of being available for someone else. Being present for another may take the form of simply silently sitting. It surely involves total focus and really listening when they speak. It means not interrupting. It’s immediacy: it means seeking deep understanding of the other person’s experience in the moment. It’s being curious about them and setting aside all judgments. It’s eye contact and empathy and softness. And maybe the occasional touch. It means being available for another person to share themselves. Totally. With complete safety. In my presence.

Being present is not “the truth,” though I believe it is “the way.” I believe that being present, for yourself or another, is the greatest gift you can give. Or receive.

---

Soundtrack Suggestion

Mornings in April 
Sharing our secrets 
We’d walk until the morning was gone. 
We were like children 
Laughing for hours 
The joy you gave me lives on and on. 
’Cause I know you by heart.

(“I Know You By Heart” – Eva Cassidy)

---

Tweet, Tweet

I found myself, during the last week, once more trying to explain the phenomenon of Twitter. For as many times as I've tried to describe what it means to have a Twitter account, to be engaged in that kind of online activity (and the corresponding concepts of "tweets," "followers," and "following"), I was met yet again with blank stares and a "what's the point?" kind of attitude.

In response to such overt skepticism, or even contempt, I tried to make the point that the entire experience is mostly beyond words: that you really have to try it out for awhile to "get it." My attempts to communicate what "digital intimacy" and "ambient awareness" are all about have been largely unsuccessful. I guess it's a little like trying to explain any relationship - or any new technology. If you haven't been there or tried it, this new something (whatever it is, the totally unfamiliar), and you have no other life experience to compare it to...well, then, the whole thing sounds rather bizarre.

In addition to the words I just listed above, there seem to be other, equally-unfamiliar terms dominating the lexicon in this area. One new one to me was the phrase "social media." This keeps coming up over and over, and there are a quite a number of individuals on Twitter who claim to be social media "experts" or "consultants." Huh?

So, I had to do some research. Wikipedia informs us that social media

• are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

• can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), and Twitter (social networking and microblogging).

I guess what all this means is that the ubiquitous opportunities we have for interaction with other human beings via the internet, and the technologies associated with such contact are, in sum, lumped into the term "social media." It stands to reason that we'd now have developed an entire subset of individuals who specialize in facilitating such contact and are involved in the concomitant technologies.

Given all this, it would seem that I have been heavily involved in social media for years now [namely email, the Google photo-groups I belong to, instant messaging (including text-messaging via phone), this blog, Flickr, Facebook, Match.com, LinkedIn, and most recently, Twitter]. I just didn't know it.

And in terms of my biography, this all makes total sense. When it comes to new technologies and ways of communicating, I remember that, at first, I was pretty mystified, back in the 1980s, with the concept of the "personal computer." Even though I'd been programming on mainframes since the early 70s, I thought: a computer at home? Really?

But then I met the Apple IIe, and more specifically the program called "VisiCalc." From the moment I started playing around with magic of that spreadsheet software, I was pretty much hooked. Then, the true moment of personal-computer conversion came the first time I laid my hands on a Macintosh (sometime within the first year of its existence). As I fooled around with the graphics capabilities of the machine, the WYSIWYG interface, and the ease of use of the mouse, I was enthralled. My reaction was I have to have one of these. The Mac Plus was way beyond my financial means at the time, but I wasn't to be denied. Just one week later (after refinancing my car), I owned a Macintosh. All it took was the exposure and a little familiarity: and that little box with a tiny screen started to change my life. The Mac Plus was likely the real genesis of my metamorphosis into TechnoMonk.

However, in the present day, for years I had resisted the idea of the social networking sites. Weren't MySpace and Facebook primarily for angst-ridden teenagers and college kids struggling to find connection? What did these kinds of internet destinations have to do with me, anyway?

However, as I have described earlier, I finally, this last summer, tried Facebook. And, because of the "status update" feature there, I was led to Twitter. Through Twitter, I have now developed a sense of being part of an online community. I have generated an awareness of this collection of individuals, some of whom I "know" better than others - either because of the frequency of their posts or how they use their allotted 140 characters to communicate their lives. And, since I have developed a number of "followers," they must be getting some kind of a sense of me. As of today, I follow over 90 people and there are over 60 individuals who receive my regular, periodic updates...with a number of them already having commented on my entries, either publicly or privately. Apparently some of them, at least, are paying attention to me and my life. So far, the experience with Twitter has been much more interactive and satisfying that my three years of blogging have been.

I had envisioned this blog would attract a few followers, and it has. A very few. (Who are you, oh person in Oman?) However, only a small percentage of you who check-in here interact with me in any meaningful way (at least through the blog). My expectations, in that regard, have not been met. This website does allow me a place to publish these little essays I feel compelled to produce, though. And, for that reason, I anticipate I'll remain a blogger, even though more and more of my energy will go into the microblogging activity of Twitter.

(Final note: For another person's perspective on the appeal of Twitter, and the decline of the weblog, read the recent online Wired Magazine article by Paul Boutin entitled "Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.")

Update on October 18, 2008:

People just keep talking about, and trying to explain, Twitter.

Here's an article from today's Wall Street Journal: "Twitter Goes Mainstream."

And here is a story about how Twitter helped save a life recently (posted today on a personal blog): "Think Twitter is Useless? Think Again."

Luck and Courage

I read both fiction and nonfiction. I love to escape into stories, made-up or real-life. I’m particularly a fan of the memoir (which really should come as no surprise given that a lot of these “musings” are intensely autobiographical in nature). So, here I am to report that I’ve just finished reading a particularly compelling one (memoir, that is).

I became acquainted with author Alice Sebold when I read her first novel The Lovely Bones. Although the book, a bestseller, was published in 2002, I probably picked it up around 2005 or so. Bones is the tale of a 14-year-old girl who has been raped and murdered – and who narrates the entire story from her vantage point beyond the grave: in heaven.

I remember thinking: this is an interesting approach.

For whatever reason, I found this novel to be totally intriguing: though certainly in a dark way. The book was anything but a “quick-read” for me.

On a trip to our local Borders store, just recently, I discovered that Sebold had written another book prior to Bones. In 1999, she published a memoir entitled Lucky (as in “lucky to be alive”). This work is a first-person account of her rape: a tragic event that happened on the last day of her freshman year at Syracuse University. The story includes a chronicle of her eventual identification (a few months later) of the rapist; the subsequent trial and conviction; and the progress of her life in the aftermath. The narrative also provides such details as: the status of her relationships with family and other men; her issues with heroin addiction; the gradual awakening to, and acceptance of, her post-traumatic stress syndrome; and the practically unbelievable development when one of her college roommates is raped, on Alice’s own bed, a couple of years later.

So, you’re probably asking: why is this is a story I’d be interested in? What could possibly make this book worth my time?

Good questions.

Just let me say that Sebold is an excellent story-teller. Although this is a very difficult topic to discuss, she pulls it off with incredible sensitivity and skill. And even though it’s autobiography, which goes into excruciatingly-gory detail, especially with the rape scene at the beginning of the book, it rather reads like a novel. I was completely drawn into her narrative. Wondering what will happen next…how will she find her way through this devastation…how can she put herself back together?

Naturally, Sebold’s life has had many twists and turns because of this crime. That she found the strength to look in the mirror, step back, and try to explain, to us, what she sees – well, this speaks to me of a person of incredible courage.

I am truly inspired by her ability to communicate through the written word, and her willingness to expose herself to the world in this way.

For me: as I write, I aspire to similar courageousness. I believe that it is through stories about the human condition that we learn more about ourselves. And that the lessons these stories offer, help us to live with our pain.