The Hab May 3, 2014

I’m immersed in “The Martian”, a popular new book by Andy Weir.  Its cheerful protagonist Mark is stranded on Mars, and (spoiler alert!) his home there – “the Hab” – has just been ripped apart by an air pressure vulnerability in the aging Hab canvas.  No worries, Mark goes about fixing the whole thing (although I’m not yet sure how he is going to manage this).  Mark is so careful, so patient, so clever.  He has to be, because he needs to live another four years until the next Mars mission arrives to rescue him.

Anyway, Mark’s admirable attention to his environment made me think about my own hab, and its continual disarray.  I woke up today determined to make a dent.  Mark – I need you!

I’m not sure how one woman can possibly generate this much chaos, but I find myself in a continual struggle with entropy.  First there is my study, which is the repository of books, journals, magazines, mail, newspaper and journal clippings, gestational writing projects, financial stuff, old photos, along with pencil sharpener, computer, and printer.  Any visitor to my house would be prepared for the clutter of my study because it is approached from the runway of my upstairs hall, which itself is presently a tunnel lined with stacked boxes of old files and books from lab. 

Then there is the kitchen, which, although it is actually used for cooking, now mainly serves as my art studio.  Its island is strewn with paints, brushes, pencils, wire, wire-cutters, glue, tape, thumb tacks, paper, art books and magazines and its big round table is covered in thick brown paper forming a work area with cutting mat, exacto knives, cardboard, and Elmer’s glue.  The kitchen floor offers its own little archeological dig, as it is littered with a week’s worth of shoes (this is a bad habit I have had since childhood).  The window bench is home to a pile of music textbooks and vocal scores, the latter of which are strategically placed in sight of the back door so I won’t forget them on the way to rehearsal.  This batch of notes has a counterpart a few feet away in the dining room, where books, sheets, and Xeroxes of vocal music lie in piles on the sideboard and piano. 

Finally, there is my bedroom, which is truly scary, and really I am completely mystified as to how it can be in such a steady state of instability.  I make my bed every morning and dirty clothes do make it into the hamper.  My closet is the essence of order as I have arranged it in a hierarchy of color (pretty simple as I generally wear only black, white, and grey) followed by garment type.  Yet there seem to be a lot of clean clothes everywhere – fresh from the laundry waiting for me to put them away, things pulled out to wear but then rejected, or clothing that never quite made it back to its storage station after a night at the ballet.  Ditto for jewelry.  And of course, there is the landmine of shoes near the foot of the bed balancing the half-finished crossword puzzles, pens, and half-read books that accumulate near the pillows.

And then it hit me: since I’ve retired, I’ve become multidimensional!  When I was still working, I had a job, and before that a job and a child (who certainly spawned her own clutter, but that was largely kept to her own bedroom and my bathroom).  I didn’t sing, I wasn’t taking art classes that somehow involved every medium known to man, and my tickets to musical events were limited to one every few weeks.  Now I’m singing in two groups, tackling a new art project every other week, and taking in every ballet and vocal event San Francisco has to offer.  And hey, there is no one else living here to irritate and no one who needs an organizational role model.  But in truth, I crave order and serenity, and every now and then I need to rein in this explosion.

So this morning I steeled myself, like Mark on Mars, and said this is the day to get organized.  So far, the kitchen has been “neatified” and my desk top looks better.  But, let’s put it this way: If I discovered myself stranded on Mars, I’d just pack it in. 

The Kezar Track April 30, 2014

Whenever I contemplate downsizing by selling my big old home in San Francisco, I stop short when I think about the fabulous walks I can take right in my neighborhood.  Golden Gate Park is just a few blocks away, the lovely trails on Sutro mountain cut through the forest right behind me, and the well-kept neighborhoods of Buena Vista and Cole Valley lie just down the hill.  But easiest of all is Kezar Stadium, almost within spitting distance.  I enjoy lacing up my threadbare sneakers on sunny late-afternoon and slipping down to the track or the oval above the bleachers for a few spins. If I'm lucky, the local middle and high schools are there too to train or to compete, and I find myself tapping into their motivation.

Today, Kezar held the San Francisco Unified School District middle school track and field qualifying events.  Parents, kids, and teachers were out in full force cheering on their teams.   Each time the relay gun went off, I paused to cheer, too.  It was a riot of shapes and sizes, ethnicities, languages, and colorful jerseys.  A perfectly beautiful San Francisco spring day and a celebration of the students who are willing to go for it.

Planting the seeds April 20, 2014

I went to a yoga class this Easter morning, and our teacher invoked this spring day to think of our intention for the future.  “We cannot control what will happen,” she said, “but we can plant the seeds.”  Yes, I thought, I am spending this year planting seeds.  I will water them, I will care for them, and then, I will see what will grow.

Aging gracefully April 20, 2014

I am reading a book called “Aging as a Spiritual Practice” by Lewis Richmond.  I’m a big fan of the Buddhist “self-help” genre, as these books always lead me to feel more centered, compassionate, and optimistic.  Midway through, the author proposes a variant on the Buddhist “metta” – loving kindness – “prayer”, as follows:

As I grow older, may I be kind to myself;

As I grow older, may I accept joy and sorrow;

As I grow older, may I be happy and at peace.

This short prayer can serve as the basis for a meditation practice, and it can be extended to others whom we know and then to all beings.  I am already feeling its gentle effect.  Are you?

The Archives April 19, 2014

One of the stressful aspects of my recent visit with my sister was our need to clean out the family archives, and for our family, this was an immense undertaking, particularly as Dad was the uber record-keeper of his generation.

Not only did my father have journals going back to the late 1930s from his days in the CCC and continuing until his stroke killed his ability to write, he also kept reams of notepads with daily stock market data and bits of travel information, interlaced with sweet little drawings of nuts and bolts, literally, that he needed for one project or another.  There were his photographs, each one individually dated and cross-referenced with the roll number and all of the original negatives.  There were the photographs and records from his work as a structural engineer.  It was a whole life unfolding.  And yet somehow it didn’t fully capture that man who was humble and joyful, who was so proud of his family, who was clever and curious, and who loved to watch things grow. 

Though his bridges and buildings still stand, his artworks have found homes with us, and his diaries may be useful archives for historians, he, and my mother, will not live past our own children who knew them.  It is another sobering reminder of the transience of this life.

About Time April 18, 2014

I visited my sister in Cleveland last weekend and flew home via American Airlines.  As my pair of flights were late in the day after a busy and emotionally exhausting get-together, I succumbed to the lure of  individual seat monitors and watched four episodes of a geek sitcom followed by two movies.  One of these, About Time, is a recent flick that features Bill Nighy as an ex-professor who can travel back in time, a genetically endowed trait that he passed to his ginger-haired and awkward son.  “Use it,” he advised, “For something you really want.”  Finding love was the son’s response.

Near the end of the movie, as Nighy approaches his death, he gives his son another piece of advice: live each day twice, once with all its inherent stresses, and again in full presence and joy.  Soon, the son develops the skill to live each day just once, yet with close observation and a relish for each moment as it unfolds.  His is a very wonderful life, indeed. 

I have been practicing this idea all week.  Here is this moment.  Can I simply observe it and enjoy it without fear or grasping?  Can I let go of whatever the worry is of the moment and focus on its inherent joy, appreciate it more deeply with a new perspective?  I like this practice!

Two-thirds and counting April 2, 2014

It is already April, and I feel no closer to committing to a second career than I did a year ago.  If anything, all of my options, save one, seem even more compelling! 

Or so I thought.  The one option that I was ready to discard is singing, yet it has gotten back under my skin and I look forward to it more than anything.  In addition to Marin Oratorio, I’m singing again with the West Bay Opera, this time in the Magic Flute (be still my heart).  What an incredible opportunity.  After reading Aaron Copeland’s book “What to Listen for in Music”, in which he points out that the three essential components of music are the composer, the performer, and the listener, I considered how many singers have sung these same notes over the centuries and how many listeners have been delighted by them.

I met with Cathy for my second “check-in” of the year, and though I hadn’t intended to, I began my report with music.  This led to two hours on just that topic, and I can see Cathy encouraging me to deeply mine this vein.  How reminiscent of Barbara's comment from about a month ago (see "Productive Obsession").  

Tonal to Atonal March 12, 2014

Inspired by my music theory class, I decided to listen to the Leonard Bernstein Norton Lectures, delivered at Harvard in 1973 and entitled “The Unanswered Question”.  Turns out they are all on YouTube, so I’ve been binge watching.  Bernstein is brilliant and charismatic, and within the first lecture, he already touched on what we had been learning in class and reinforced it.  By the fourth lecture, once he has passed through the fundamentals with Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven and explored the chromatic ambiguity of Belioz, Wagner, and Debussy, he turned to Schoenberg and atonality.  He pointed out that even in the exploration of atonality, Schoenberg did return to tonality, as though there was some fundamental longing to inhabit the natural physical realm of the harmonics of tonal music. 

I thought about this today as I walked back into my old lab at UCSF to prepare some samples for a collaborator.  After spending these past eight months pursuing my own version of atonality, i.e., music and art classes, would I find the pull of my own natural tonality – genetics – compelling enough to suck me back in?  Not sure yet. 

Productive Obsession March 5, 2014

More than a year ago, I happened to be up early on a Sunday morning and heard an interview on the radio with Eric Maisel, a local psychologist and writer.  Maisel promoted the idea of “productive obsession”, the process of identifying and striving for a tangible albeit slightly out-of-reach goal that celebrates both journey and product.  I thought, “That is it!  That is exactly what I am seeking in retirement. That is me!”  And then a few months ago, I happened to read something about mush dogs, born to run, or dogs with other tasks, born to work.  Again there was the epiphany of self-recognition.  For now, I’ll put aside the disconcerting issue of how weird this is or the questions of why I’m wired this way and whether I could ever simply “be”.  Rather, these musings reinforced my desire to pursue something demanding and compelling, something with a productive output to make me really feel alive, useful, engaged, and happy.

Indeed, homing in on my life’s next productive obsession is the overriding task for this year.  I’ve come to realize that the act of identifying my next productive obsession has almost reached the level of productive obsession itself!  Why is this so hard?

Time is closing in and there are so many directions to contemplate!  Remember the Daruma doll?  Well, I actually now have three Daruma dolls; Cathy my coach had to buy extras!  One doll was for the opera chorus; the second is dedicated to getting published my manuscript on splicing (an actual product that has yet to see the light of day); and the third, just labeled on Sunday, is pursuing architecture, starting with a three-year masters in architecture program.  Then there are a bunch of ideas that haven’t yet reached the level of Daruma doll, such as teaching or political action or even working again on a genetics project. 

I happened to be at a little reception last night with my friend and colleague Barbara, and she asked about my music classes at College of Marin.  I excitedly told her what I was learning about music theory and structure of compositions.  But I said, “I have no idea where I am going with all of this.”  And she countered, “Does it matter?”   Ah, I wonder!

The French Open March 5, 2014

Influenced by my new “seize-the-day” mentality, an outgrowth of our trip to New Zealand, I woke up on January 13^th and thought to myself, “Order tickets for the French Open.”  I’m talking tennis, June, Paris, and my heartthrob Rafa Nadal, who has won this tournament a record-breaking eight times. 

I had registered with the Roland Garros website last year to purchase tickets, but I was far too late.  So when I clicked on the site in mid-January and discovered the announcement that ticket sales would commence in just two days, I was energized.  I awoke very early on the 15th, but already only a few tickets, fabulously expensive, remained for the men’s final.  I opted instead for pairs of tickets for both the ladies’ semi-finals and the men’s semi-finals.  I filled in a few fields, clicked a few buttons, and – yikes – I had them! 

Next challenge: find a buddy to enjoy the games with me.  My daughter Annie was naturally my first thought, as she is an avid tennis player, but she would be preoccupied with her final exams that week.  So I asked my dear friend Sue Kenwrick, who lives in the UK.  Sue and I go way back, and we had already been talking about meeting somewhere in Europe for a few days this spring.  We had also taken a few tennis lessons together at one point, so I knew she liked the sport.  Happily, Sue jumped on board!  We planned to stay in Paris for four days, and I organized a post-tennis interview in Basel for PLoS Genetics, then staying with other friends there.   Miraculously I was able to cash in some of my many United Miles for the flights.  Somehow it all came together, at least in foresight!

And now, Nadal: If you hear that Yankee screaming, it is I!