Rare Bird of Fashion (Non-fiction)

I never even made it out the door of the Library with Rare Bird of Fashion: the Irreverent Iris Apfel. After I checked it out, I went straight for a comfy chair by the windows. I read the account of Iris’s journey to become a famous stylist and perused the photographs from her fashion exhibit in one very satisfying sitting. The experience was like going to see some charismatic motivational speaker. “Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I can.” Of course, the obvious question is “what is it that I can?” Hmm. As I was walking home, sans book that I had tidily put in the book drop, I thought of Brian Glazier and his book, A Curious Mind. Both books are inspiring in the same way. I am sure some language has an expression for it: to be one’s own person, to live with tenacity, to provide luck and serendipity with a big target. It isn’t about their specific crafts but rather about how they are in the world and with themselves.

What a perfect way to spend part of an afternoon!

The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds (Mystery Novel)

“But Cat says that you’re always interfering. She says that you get mixed up in all sorts of things and that you help people. She told me. And everybody know it. They know that if they need something sorted, they can go to you.”

In the above quote, Eddie, an employee of Isabel's niece, perfectly sums up the Isabel Dalhouse novels. The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith is the ninth novel in the series. It is part mystery, part philosophical musings, and part a gentle look at life. It appeals more to our right brains than our left.

Briefly, Isabel is approached by a “friend” whose friend, Duncan Munrowe, has had a very expensive painting stolen. In a bold move, the thief has chosen to use an intermediary to negotiate a type of ransom. Isabel tries to find out who stole the painting while she also offers emotional support to Duncan.

But the novel is really about people. Duncan ‘s relationship with his children takes center stage. Isabel and her husband Jamie are at odds with Grace, their beloved housekeeper, on how to best raise Charlie. Isabel learns more about Eddie’s painful past. Isabel struggles with biting her tongue and being kind.

The book is also about philosophy. Some of the discussions are abstract. What do we owe to future generations? How important is ethnic identity? Others are to close to home:

It was all very well being the editor of a journal of applied ethics; you could deliberate to your heart’s content on the rightness or wrongness of action, but none of it was real; not until somebody actually came up to you, as Duncan now was doing, and said: "Tell me what to do."

Part of me wonders why I read the Isabel Dalhouse novels; perhaps they are a bit highbrow for me. I don’t know much about art. I can’t relate much to wealth. I’ve never even been to Scotland. Yet, I know I sleep better when I have read one of Alexander McCall Smith’s books during the day. I feel more compassionate towards people. I look at life differently. I find myself replaying scenes in my mind. I find a kind of gentleness walks with me throughout my day. For me, The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds is not only a book; it is also a balm to soothe a troubled soul, at least for a few hours.

Kata’s 2010 Reflections

2010 was one of the most interesting years of my life, not the best or most successful or happiest, but one of the most interesting. For me interesting is a positive thing, a reason for getting up in the morning, a reason for putting one foot in front of the other and living each day. Almost everything that happened was unexpected. Maybe I just put the interesting vibration out into the universe.

In early spring I sent my cousin a very emotional e-mail about all the things that were going wrong in my life. One of my last sentences was asking whether I could do work for him, any work, just to try to stay sane. Coincidentally, he was in the process of submitting a proposal for a self-paced training course. I’ve been writing training materials for a long time, but I didn’t know anything about federal laws and how industrial air pollution is controlled. In addition, much to my cousin’s chagrin, I managed to earn a master’s degree without every taking a physics course. So, I immersed myself in the content I received from my cousin as well as practically everything I could find on the Internet. Because I love to learn, this was sheer happiness.

In late spring, I was an enumerator for the 2010 Census, not particularly successful financially, but a great way to meet fascinating people. One of my favorites was an 80+ year old owner of a massive apartment complex, who told me her secrets for keeping young. Because the apartments were close to a medical college, I was also able to chat with young adults from various countries.

In June, bored with what I was reading, I decided to begin to read Hugo award winning novels, 50 years worth of novels, a goal that is going to take me well into the middle of 2011. Each novel makes me think, some more than others. Each novel enlarges my view of the world and of how writers express themselves through words. In addition, I have been exposed to more science. Those concepts I learned while working on the air pollution course have reappeared in a number of the novels.

My blogs have been a source of fascination for me. At the beginning of the year, I set out to write 50 entries in Kata Chimes In and 100 entries in Kata’s Cadence. Little did I know that I would have a small religious crisis and have almost no motivation to write in the second blog, which I associated with my participation in a particular church. In autumn I noticed someone had accessed my New Year’s Resolution post, so I reread it. I am not a person who takes goals lightly. For the last three months of the year, I wrote a poem, blessing, prayer or affirmation almost every morning. Who could ask for a better education? I learned about myself, about writing, and about my readers.

In fall, I went back to taking Tai Chi classes after a two year break. This was one of the hardest and most rewarding semesters for me. Because this was an advanced class, the emphasis was on internal awareness, an area that most of us have little training in. Sure, I could do the form, but do the form while trying to feel my heart beat?

Throughout the year, my thoughts about how I perceive people have changed. Enumerating for the Census forced me outside my comfort zone. Books like The Cow In The Parking Lot by Leonard Scheff and Susan Edmiston, Yoga for Anxiety by Mary NurrieStearns and Rick NurrieStearns, The Miracle of Right Thinking by Orison Swett Marden and The Learning to Love Yourself Workbook by Gay Hendricks helped change the way I look at myself and the world.

For Christmas, I decided to make some Christmas ornaments based on a design in the book Diane Fitzgerald's Shaped Beadwork. I loved how my brain twisted in little knots when I tried to think three-dimensionally. Last night I tried a different pattern in preparation for making a gift for myself (and maybe next year’s Christmas presents). I just didn’t get it, and then all of a sudden, later in the evening, it clicked.

The year contained hundreds of other fascinating things, including farmers’ markets I didn’t know about, new recipes, things from my parents and my childhood that I still am finding as I clean out the house. Today my neighbor-sister took me to a Hispanic grocery store, and I didn’t want to leave. This year, I have been like a little kid, filled with wonder.

I am afraid of 2011. I realized that as I debated whether to try my hand at writing a New Year’s blessing. I like small changes, but don’t like major upheavals. This coming year has a high probability for major upheavals. The New Thought writers talk a lot about faith, and I think the coming year will require me to depend upon it more than in recent years.

Seeing People

More times than not, I think of change as a positive force. But, one of the not so good trends is a lack of basic acknowledgment by people of those around them on the sidewalk, at the store, at the library, etc. A few months ago I had an encounter with a group leader on a temporary job. I was standing three feet away from her, waiting to give her my time sheet, and she absolutely did not acknowledge my presence, not with a word, not with body language, not with a grunt or a hurumph, nothing. I was invisible to her. I wish this had been an isolated instance, but it appears to be the trend. Now I am not saying we have to greet everyone we meet with Namasate or a small town America “How ya doin?” but it would do most of us a lot of good just to be acknowledged with a slight nod or a tiny smile. Some days even a “Get the hell out of my way” would be a boost to people’s self worth; at least they would feel they existed. Alexander McCall Smith touched on that yesterday in his weekend companion to Corduroy Mansions in the Telegraph:

And seeing somebody is immensely important, I think. How many people do we see each day but not see? We walk along the street and are aware of people passing by, but do we see them in the sense of acknowledging their presence? I don’t think we do. Or we carry out the small transactions of life with others, but do we see them in the sense of recognizing their unique existence, their feelings, what it is to be them? Sorry, I don’t mean to sound pretentious, but it’s an important idea.

Solve the F@#*% Problem, Please

Has the United States become a country of judgers and critics, rather than a nation of problem solvers? When James Cameron offered to help BP control the oil spill in the gulf, many, many, many people left negative comments on the internet. What I didn’t see were comments of curiosity, surprise, or even delight. I would have liked to see a collective light bulb go on across the country. A good director knows how to solve problems, particularly the hard ones. He knows how to find and enlist experts who can contribute to his project. He has experience with not taking no for an answer, but rather challenging people to go beyond their current level of what they think is possible. He knows how to think outside the box and draw from diverse disciplines. He knows that any great project is a collaboration, not the work of one person or one company. This is the type of thinking that is needed to solve the oil spill problem quickly and with as few long term problems as possible. I am not talking about James Cameron the man as much as the way of looking at a problem that he represents. That is what we need.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if twenty years from now a little girl told her teacher, “we are called the ‘United States’ because we are really, really good at solving problems together?” Wouldn’t it be better if it were true, if the US was know for its problem solving expertise the world over?

Magnificent Now

I have to go do something magnificent now, while the day is still young.

Audrey in Manor of Death by Leslie Caine.

Human Complexity

If I could go back in time, I would like to help my younger self understand that human beings are a whirl of complexity. We tend to categorize people as friend or foe, good or bad, eat or be eaten. We too often interact with people as though we were a small primate in a tree in the jungle having to make a split decision for our survival.

I would encourage my younger self to enjoy the wondrous dimensionality of every person she will ever know. Even the worst person will have some good part to their personality. Even the best person will have aspects that are not so admirable. Over the years I have had people I thought were my friends turn into utter jerks—to use a kinder, gentler term. It was only later that I discovered that they were in physical or emotional pain. I wish that I had been aware enough to begin to look at that, to perhaps probe, or at least not to take the interaction so personally. Even the most aggressive person can be passive at times. Even the most passive person can have an aggressive side. Even the most dependable, loving person will at times disappoint us and let us down. At the same time, some person we dismiss as not friend-worthy will come to our rescue. Every friend, colleague, family member will have a part of them that irrigates the heck out of us. If we look hard enough, everyone we meet will have a side that is utterly charming.

Of course, the same is true of ourselves. Sometimes we are jerks, sometimes wonderful individuals. In some situations we are aggressive, at other times we may surprise ourselves with our passivity. At times we are generous, at other times selfish. For people who are depressed, it is too easy to only see the times they didn’t behave according to their ideal. Others feel misunderstood when people imply they ever behaved other than admirably.

I would give my younger self a “prism” so that she could see all the colors within each person she meets and within her own self.

Failing and Succeeding

I was brought up on a steady diet of “Don’t make mistakes,” “Don’t fail,” “Don’t do anything foolish.”

Seth Godin writes in his December 21st 2009 blog entry: “Painters, musicians, entrepreneurs, writers, chiropractors, accountants--we all fail far more than we succeed. We fail at closing a sale or playing a note. .… But we succeed far more often than people who have no ideas at all.”

A similar discussion between Mary and Lurt takes place in Humans, by Robert J. Sawyer, a story about discovering a parallel universe where Neanderthals are the “human” species. Mary, a human as we know it, falls in love with Ponter, a Neanderthal.

…when your life is ending, will you regret not having tried to make a relationship with Ponter work? .... Listen carefully to my question, friend Mare. I am not asking if you would regret not pursuing this relationship if it were to succeed. I am asking whether you would regret not pursuing it even if it fails.

Lurt goes on to tell about trying to become a fiction writer and failing at it.

But I do not regret having tried and failed at fiction writing. Of course, I would have preferred to succeed, but on my deathbed I knew I would be more sad if I had never tried, never have tested to see if I might succeed at it, than I would be had I tried and failed.

Changing my thinking about success and failure has been like trying to turn around a team of a dozen Clydesdales. I am beginning to ask myself the question, “How can I increase my probability of succeeding?” Slowly, I am finding that I am changing my everyday behaviors.

Substitutes for Self-confidence

In The Ordeal of Change, Eric Hoffer talks about how to overcome that awkwardness that most of us feel when we begin something new.

Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skills.

I sometimes imagine opening up my arms wide and just flinging myself with mindless abandon.

When Everything Changes

When Everything Changes, Change Everything, by Neale Donald Walsch, is an excellent book on dealing with change. I am on my third time through. Here is one of the opening quotes:

The changes in our life are not going to stop…What can be changed is the way you deal with change, and the way you’re changed by change.

Where Did that Attitude Come From?

When I was in school, writing assignments were a breeze for me. Our family religiously watched the nightly news, and I heard Walter Cronkite’s articulate voice in my head whenever I put pen to paper. Occasionally I will hear an odd phrase come out of my mouth or appear in my e-mails. Where did that come from? I feel a sense of accomplishment when I can track the wording back to its source. I am amazed how easily these phrases slip into my life without any conscious effort on my part.

I am aware of a similar process taking place in my attitudes toward life. For example, while reading books by Alexander McCall Smith recently I have found myself with a smile that starts at my toes and goes all the way up. When I watch television, I now make an effort to pay attention to the feelings I have during and after each program. NCIS usually leaves me feeling upbeat, probably because of the interactions of the main characters. Lost seems to stimulate my curiosity toward life. Recently, entertainment news programs have left me with a judging attitude. What amazes me is that I have spent a lifetime being more or less unaware of how television and books form my attitudes while I passively sit in my chair.