Paper Bird

In my continuing effort to get a life outside work, we ventured down to Pearl Street for this summer’s first Bands on the Bricks event, featuring a homegrown Boulder band called Paper Bird. Paper Bird is an intriguing 7-member musical mixture with three female vocalists doing strong, tight harmonies, a banjo, a bass, a guitar – all spiced up with the occasional Dylanesque harmonica riff and a jazzy trombone. Once in awhile one of the women whips out a trumpet and blows a few bars to punctuate a song. Almost all the tunes they do are original and despite the fact that the sound mix wasn’t quite right and the vocals didn’t come through optimally, I became an instant fan, going so far as to buy both a t-shirt and their first CD, “Anything Nameless and Joybreaking.” They have a new CD coming out in July called “When the River Took Flight” that I’ll probably try out as well.

I’ve been listening to the CD in my car all week – a vintage sound and interesting lyrics (which you know I am a sucker for from my previous blogs). Example:

"If i sewed together all my illusions of youth i could make a coat that would keep me warm in December. if we laid all of our desires side by side we'd be walking on broken glass for miles.

chorus:  if i ask enough questions with no hope for reply would i understand the structure of love? i'd like to understand the structure of love."

                                              Esme Patterson, Paper Bird

It’s a satisfying combination of not-easily-categorized bluegrass, jazz, blues, folk—they were a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t heard them before, give them a whirl.

Rainy BoulderWalk

Before our walk we gaze out at the backyard, where the cold rain continues and the grass appears to have grown a full inch overnight.  As sometimes happens between couples who have been together for a long time, M and I simultaneously remember a Ray Bradbury story about a planet where it has been raining for the last seven years and the children who have never seen the sun:  “All Summer in a Day.”

Colorado natives are not accustomed to multiple days of steady rain, and that’s what we’ve had.  Sunday morning we decide to break out the ponchos and risk our lives to stroll along the Boulder Creek bike patch in the epicenter of the flood plain.  We park our car on one of the upper levels in the nearby parking garage “just in case,”  and ponder whether we would hear the rush of the hundred-year-flood in enough time to climb to safety above the creek path.   

Along the wider than usual creek, the water rushes by.  Two kayakers carry their gear past us on the way up to their usual launching point.  “You’re really going to try it today?” M asks in amazement, and they chuckle nervously.  The water is high, but not as high as we’ve sometimes seen it.  The underpasses are partially dry and still walkable.  The rain lightens after awhile, then pounds down heavily, then lets up again, a pattern that repeats again and again.  The clouds throw a heavy cloak over the Flatirons and the rare deep green of the foothills.  At Eben Fine Park a group of gung ho runners soldiers ahead with their sprints and stretches and then heads up the creek trail, their coach running effortlessly alongside them uttering words of encouragement. 

Chief Niwot sits, stoic as always under the downpour, and the birds seem to thrive; the excess water does flush the worms out of their hidey holes.  It is cold for June, around forty degrees.  Last night the steam rose up from our outdoor hot tub and the rain drops made circular patterns on the surface of the   water encouraging meditation on the present moment. 

Yes, it’s a cold rain for June—but we remember the drought days and watering our thirsty flowers with gray water from the bathtub, and are grateful for life and rainfall, knowing as we do the strong connection between the two.

Inverness at South Padre Island

“If there is anything you need and don’t see, please let us know…and we will show you how to do without it.” - Sign on the bathroom wall in the Inverness condo at South Padre Island

And after a few days at Inverness I see that I have everything I need. Maybe it was the constant sound of the surf, or the sleepy heat of the beach between wind bursts, or the 11th floor balcony looking out toward the infinite ocean horizon, or the large sign under the big-screen TV that said “RELAX.” In any event I feel like I can smile easily again and have had a good rest.

I found time to do things like bend myself backward in repeated attempts to capture pictures of seagulls and pelicans in flight from my bird’s eye perch on the 11th floor. And to just sit by the ocean and listen to the waves and read and read and read and read for hours on end. And to let the heat reflected off the sand soak into me and then to finally swim in the salty cool waters, dodging the clumps of seaweed. And repeat. And also to be rested enough to be willing to get up in the middle of the night to observe the thunderstorm and light show out at sea. And again in the morning to arise and gaze down the shimmering path of light leading to the sunrise over the water.

We call it a “vacation” in the U.S. which sounds so empty and clinical. I prefer the European word for it. Believe me, they know how to take time off, and they call it “going on holiday.”

What Not to Say

“Silence is the true friend that never betrays.” - Confucius

Silence is underrated. I’m a very verbal person so I almost always have something to say. I have been focusing more lately on examining things I want to say and following Sai Baba’s mindful recommendation:

"Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?"

I believe this is a great approach to apply especially in cases where you are struggling to let go—of a grown child who is making his or her own way, of an employee who is smart enough to know what she’s doing and rarely needs your guidance, or of a loved one who is standing strong after a rough period.

In each case, saying less rather than more contributes to their growing strength and self-confidence. Unsolicited advice is an example of “helping” that doesn’t really help, and is one of my worst vices. Advice on every topic comes spewing out of me like a Gulf Bay gusher, and once it starts up it’s hard to cap. I need the Kevin Costner solution—some kind of machine that chugs away efficiently separating the messy, oily crap from the clear ocean water of support and love.

When I’m in doubt, I have found that staying silent listening carefully is often the best course; it’s amazing how much I learn that I didn’t understand before. Try it. Oops – that may have been unsolicited advice. Oh well.

Unfettered and Alive

On the way to work Friday morning Joni’s “I Was a Free Man in Paris” plays on the radio. I turn up the volume and sit in my car in the parking lot to listen all the way to the end.

“The way I see it,” he said

“You just can’t win it….

Everybody’s in it for their own gain

You can’t please ‘em all

There’s always somebody calling you down.”

The song is said to be about Joni’s agent/promoter David Geffen, creator of Asylum Records in 1970 (I know—that’s a long time ago). It’s about the high cost of selling your soul to the corporation and the longing for freedom from it all.

So--if you work for a corporation, or more generally for money in any sizeable amount, have you automatically sold out? When I hear that phrase “free man in Paris,” I feel a great longing for the freedom of not having to answer to anybody else for things I don’t necessarily believe in—but on the other hand I do try every day to stay true to my principles, even as I also work toward the goals of the corporation as I understand them and when they make sense to me. I focus on treating others with kindness and fairness, and on teamwork.

“I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for…”

Sometimes I find myself skating uncomfortably close to some sort of edge; I ask myself again and again whether what I’m doing is right and struggle to stay the course accordingly.

“I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive.
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one’s future to decide.
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.”

The ethical tests I usually use at work and elsewhere are: 1) could I explain it to my Mom and 2) would I be able to read about it in the newspaper and be proud of the calls I made. There’s always the option to walk away—you are always the free man in Paris in this sense. There are potentially high costs of course, but you always have to know walking away is an option. Therefore, there is no excuse for violating your core principles, right?

I Stress, Eustress, We All Stress

I learned a new word from a friend’s blog recently: Eustress. It means “good stress,” as opposed to the opposite kind, distress. It’s the kind of stress that’s supposed to give you a positive feeling of fulfillment. Examples might be getting a promotion at your job, childbirth, riding a roller coaster. The challenge is that your body reacts pretty much the same to either eustress or distress; the whole key then is to learn how to adapt to change whether positive or negative.

My “How I Stay Sane” blogs are all about some of the various approaches I’ve discovered for adapting to change and being awake enough to find equilibrium through these changes. It ain’t easy, I know that much. Despite all my efforts it’s still a challenge when I face the inevitable unknowns implied by major life change.

One of the most immediately helpful techniques I’ve found is to focus on the here and now, and finding little ways I can make the world a better place right this second as I take the next small step in my life. If I’m headed somewhere on business and I’m worried about how well I might fare on this trip, it helps me to break the planning for the journey and the journey itself down into very small steps in which I strive to be completely present and do the very best I can each step of the way.

I check my bag and tip the guy a little extra; when he wishes me a good day I look him in the eye, smile, and return the favor. I smile again as I help the young mother who has just dropped the diaper bag near the top of the escalator and is looking lost and flustered; I steer her to the nearby elevator that will be much easier for her and her toddler. I speak calmly to the tiny elderly lady in the seat next to mine whose eyes are large and whose hands are shaking a little as she tells me this is her very first flight. As the plan takes off, I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and remember a peaceful walk through the forest I took awhile back.

These are all little choices that make the world a tiny bit better for me and often for those around me. They take me outside my inner world of anxiety and what-ifs and disaster scenarios and help me remember the Desiderata mantra: No doubt things are unfolding as they should. They work for both types of stress: the distress of a flight back home to help a very sick family member, and perhaps the eustress a person might feel about a flight to San Francisco to start an exciting two-month internship in a genetics lab.

What are your methods for dealing with *stress?

BinBots, or "Are You Acquired? Have You Ever Been Acquired? I Have."

A colleague of mine used to utter a phrase I always heard as “BinBot” when talking about an employee of a company that’s “been bought” – i.e. acquired by another company. Many years have passed since the last time I was acquired.

But last week my company and another much larger company announced what they say is a marriage made in heaven. Their CEO actually told us in a meeting that we were “beautiful” and they “don’t want to change a thing about” us – that we will remain an independent entity, etc. etc.

This much adoration is enough to make a girl bat her eyes and blush furiously, but I think I’ll not let it go to my head.

We know damn well the only constant is change. But we are assured that nothing will change, we are doing great already, we should proceed with our existing plans and priorities and not be distracted by the fact that a company ten times larger than us has plans to buy us, or the other fact that now there appears to be a potential bidding war over our lovely selves.

A girl has the urge to say, “Why don’t you and him fight?” But a fight would be unpleasant and somebody might get hurt—most likely the tiniest bystanders (that would be us). I hope the deal goes through smoothly and quickly—this would be much preferred over a prolonged engagement, or a bloody brawl at the wedding, or worse still a shotgun wedding with one of the other scarier suitors—who have belatedly realized how gorgeous and irresistible we are and how much they do not want someone else to have us.

It’s kind of nice to be desired again—it seems like it’s been forever.