The Work/Life Balance

Last weekend, I found myself at a bar with a German.  He was in London visiting his girlfriend, and because I’m always curious about how long-distance relationships work, and because I’m nosy, I asked how often they got to see each other.  Their answer?  In the five years they’d been dating, they’d never gone more than two weeks, despite having a sea and a country between them.  “How is that possible?”  I asked.  When my boyfriend and I were long distance for six months, we only saw each other once, during a week-long Christmas break where we both used up all of our vacation days.  “How much time do you get off?” The German waved his hand about.  “Oh, you know,” he said, his accented words lilting charmingly, “it is up to us, really. If we take less than five weeks, they get a bit mad, but other than that, it is up to us.”

I can’t relay the conversation after this point, so stupefied was I by the facts he was casually conveying.  Five weeks was their minimum.  The company got mad if he didn’t take it.  By contrast, not one person in the last company I worked for used up their two weeks of vacation a year.  We weren’t the anomaly---apparently, more than half of people don’t use up their vacation days allotted in a given year.  And the US has some of the lowest amount of annual leave in the Western world.

I remember when, as an adolescent, I flipped through an issue of Time at my doctor’s office (I had sadly outgrown my prime Highlights years, and Time was the only other cover without a cross section of lungs or a colon on it).  It wasn’t even an article, just a small blurb, and when I read it, my largest career aspiration was to somehow gain employment at Jamba Juice.   Somehow, though, the sentiment struck a chord, and it became a go-to group conversation topic for years to come:  when given the choice of more time off or more money, the majority of Europeans chose more time.  The majority of Americans chose more money.

Because of this, and because of some media-driven idea of the overworked, bustling American eating a muffin on the treadmill while reading three papers and frantically replying to emails on their phone, I expected England to be a welcome change of pace from the life I’d become accustomed to living in New York and San Francisco before.  At all of my jobs, I was expected to be on for approximately 24 hours a day, available to answer emails and take calls even in the late evening hours.  Why not? I remember many a boss saying.  You should love what you do.  Your work should be your passion; your work should be your life.

I remember, when I was moving to England, telling people how much I was looking forward to a more even work-life balance.  “The Europeans just get it,” I said to anyone who cared and a lot of people who didn’t.  “They care about their jobs, but they realize there’s a world outside of it.”  And then I got to England.  Everyone was on their cell phones, and expected to be available 24 hours a day.  Everyone was rushing to and from their offices; everyone was stressed out. While they had, on average, more time off than those in the US (three weeks to the US’s two), few people took it.

“What’s the deal?” I asked one of my friends, a PR executive in her late 20s.  I told her about my expectations, about the European work-life balance I’d idealized and coveted.

“It’s still there,” she said, “in mainland Europe.  Here, we’re more like the US.  If you want to be successful on a world playing field, you need to work like it.   If people in the US are working till 8 or 9, we can’t be competitive with them by leaving at 5.”

Studies suggest, however, that this is more the perception than the reality.  A recent New York Times article suggests that relaxing more, recuperating, sleeping, and allowing your brain its much-needed resting time, improves overall output, even when less hours are actually invested.   By not having it all be output, output, output, you allow your brain to regenerate, to become stimulated. You catalyze new ideas and forge new neural pathways.  It’s healthier for you, healthier for your company, and, to be frank, more fun.

Yet, this is easier said than done.  While the writer of the Times article is working with companies that have a start-up mentality, companies like Google and Apple with beanbag chairs and on site basketball courts, it’s much harder to tell your boss that you should take a longer lunch break, and maybe a nap time around three.  It’s harder to say, I’m leaving at five because my work will be better, and it’s harder to shuffle out amid the glares from your coworkers.  The attitude is prevalent enough that it permeates the self-employed---despite making my own schedule (or perhaps more so because of it), I feel guilty whenever I’m not at my computer, actively writing.   I feel like I’m missing out on some opportunity to do better, and to be better.  Better than what?  The norm?  The ever increasing standard?  Maybe.  Or maybe just myself.

It’s sad then, when my PR maven friend tells me proudly that the UK is moving in the direction of the US.  It’s sad when my friends brag about spending the night at the office, or how they’re so busy they forgot to eat.  It’s sad when Zack and I are talking about his summer vacation and he’s listing off projects and internships, ways to get ahead.  “What about a vacation?” I ask.  “What about a little rest?”

“No one else will be resting,” he says.  “If you don’t move forward, you’re left behind.”

This, of course, isn’t something that can be changed on an individual level.  It’s a wide-scale shift in psyche; a probe into our values and what makes us happy on an individual and societal level.  But for my part, at least, I’m going to try and go outside when the sun is shining.  I’m going to take walks in the morning before I check my email, and I’m not going to give people my contact information with an assured, “You can reach me anytime.”  I’m going to try, at least, to do my work and live my life, and I invite you to join me.  If we all stay behind together, maybe, eventually, we’ll all end up ahead.

XXV. Bretagne

When you have a week off from school and the whole country to explore, one of my favorite things about France is that you only have to be 21 years old to rent a car. Leah and I take a train from Aix to Paris to Brest, a coastal city in the northwest corner, and get a Fiat Panda, a little red thing that reminds me of a lunchbox. Then we take off for our three-day road trip tracing the coastline. I drive and Leah is in charge of choosing the music and, arguably more important, navigation, reading the free map for tourists we picked up at the rental center. It shows more illustrations of Breton boys and sheep than highway names, but we’ve found our way so far.

When it gets too dark to see the countryside, we stop in small towns with names like Crozon and Le Fret and find a place to stay, usually a small bed and breakfast. Leah and I spend most of the nights out drinking cider in pubs and watching soccer games with the locals until we’re too tired or too tipsy to keep our eyes open. We subsist on little more than apples, crepes, and Haribo gummies. It’s a glorious Breton adventure.

One day at lunchtime we stop at a supermarket along a road outside of the town of Bénodet, our destination for the evening. Typical for France but incomprehensible for Americans, the supermarket is closed for lunch from noon to two. The Panda has a manual transmission, so the waiting time is spent teaching Leah how to drive stick shift.

We take slow turns around the empty parking lot, lurching slightly every time Leah changes gears. The supermarket employees stand outside the store’s entrance, taking slow drags from their cigarettes and curiously watching our progress as we make figure eights around the light poles. We are laughing so hard that we forget our hunger.

By the time we can get into the supermarket, Leah has made it successfully into third gear, zooming back and forth across the concrete. Still, I drive the rest of the way to Bénodet. Those French roundabouts are hard to maneuver.

The endless in-between

Dear world, I have a proposition for you. Could we maybe just skip all of the Februaries between now and eternity? Growing up in the Great Lakes region, I learned from a very young age that February meant still stuffing yourself into your puffy winter gear long after that winter gear has lost its luster. In fact, by February in northwest Pennsylvania, everything has lost its luster. The snow is no longer magical—it’s just cold and very persistent.

My sister and I had complementary snowsuits—one pink and one purple. As we got a little bigger each year, February meant packing ourselves and our snowsuits like bloated sardines into the back of our tiny red hatchback for the ride to school. When I started taking music lessons in fifth grade, it meant trudging through the snow with a saxophone case as big as myself and packing that into the hatchback too. Since some of my dad’s work was seasonal, February also brought with it a sense of scarcity. It was the time when we started to worry about our winter stores running out.

By the time I got to high school, February was less about the weather and more about the waiting. It was a month of auditions and applications for summer programs, of anxiously checking the mailbox for very important envelopes. And although the applications were different and the stakes felt higher, February remained that way for the rest of my long education—a worrying and waiting month, in which the fates review whatever you have offered up and confer about your next steps.

This February has been my very first post-school February. Having moved south and finally graduated out of the academic calendar, I had rather hoped that each of the months would take on a quieter character, that September would not be so amped up with anticipation and February would not be so filled with dread.

Despite whatever balmy visions I may have had about Atlanta, it’s still colder here in February than it usually is, and grown-up February still feels like a month of reckoning. It is a time for doing your taxes and for taking account of everything that has changed, for better or worse, since this time last year.

By now, you know how much I love beginnings. And sometimes I can deal with endings too, because they usually lead to new beginnings. In-betweens, however, are impossible to wrap my head around, and after watching twenty-six Februaries come and go, I am certain that February is nothing but an endless in-between.

There must be some important reason for February to exist—a rare flower, perhaps, that only blooms this time of year—and if you can think of one, I hope you’ll let me know. Otherwise, I will be eagerly ticking off its last few days in hopeful anticipation of spring.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Sarah Brysk Cohen, owner of Blossom and Branch, is obsessed with flowers. She has been working in flower shops on the cutting edge of floral design, from New York to California, for 20 years and opened the Blossom and Branch studio in Brooklyn, New York in 2009. Her designs have been featured in various online and print publications, including Style Me Pretty, 100 Layer Cake, Brooklyn Bride, Brides Magazine, The Knot, New York Magazine Weddings and The New York Times, as well as in the San Diego Museum of Art. In addition to providing event florals and decor, Sarah teaches floral design classes and is a regular contributor on the internationally renowned blog, Design*Sponge. Before launching her design career, she obtained an MSW and worked as a licensed clinical social worker in two states. Sarah currently lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn with her husband, one-year-old daughter and English Bulldog. TO REMIND YOU OF SUMMER Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead I read this novel a couple years ago and it filled me with longing for my sun-bleached 1980s youth.  It also tapped into my fantasies of what moneyed people do on Long Island.  I love Colson Whitehead’s writing style – he is wry without being jaded and broaches the sensitive/heavy with a sense of humor.  He takes seriously the internal struggles of a teenage boy and makes them relevant for all of us. I also get the sense that this novel must have been semi-autobiographical and I love wondering about which elements come from his experience.  Plus, I met him on my bus once!  BIG UP, BROOKLYN.

BECAUSE I AM A MEMOIR FREAK Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn Whoa.  WHOA.  This memoir by Nick Flynn is about managing his homeless, alcoholic father and the intersection of their lives when the father comes to live at the shelter where Nick is employed as a social worker.  Having worked in and run homeless shelters, this book had me imagining what it would have felt like to try and maintain boundaries with a family member as client.  Despite living a tale of intense pain and loss, Flynn is able to tell his story with clarity, humor and a clear sense of empathy for his nearly impossible father.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART GIRLS How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley A series of totally hilarious and charming essays by Crosley and a very quick read for commuters or people like me who pass out after 2 minutes when you get into bed at night with your book.  Her snarky voice masks tender observations about human nature, which rings familiar to me.  I kind of wish Ms. Crosley would be my best friend, but until then, I will have to settle for a glimpse into her world through her writing.  And I will obviously continue to lightly stalk her on Facebook.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART BOYS Live From the Campaign Trail by Michael A. Cohen OK, OK, so my husband wrote this book.  But it is actually totally fascinating and perfect for reflecting on the 2012 presidential election.  It is a history of the most important and influential campaign speeches of the 20^th Century and how they shaped modern America.  If you like history, politics, speeches and/or want to help us send our daughter to college, you should pick this up at any fine bookseller.

FOR A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA All God's Children by Fox Butterfield This is a stunning non-fiction work about violence and racism in the South told through the multi-generational struggle of the Bosket family.  This book was first released in 1995 but feels particularly relevant today, as we have experienced a recent spate of gun violence in this country and our conversation about how to address anti-social behavior has been brought to the fore.  You will be riveted by the first-person accounts of Willie Bosket, the centerpiece character of the book, and as the author digs back into the Bosket family history (all the way back their slave roots) you will see the legacy of violence continuing to produce dysfunction in modern times.  Please read this.

FOR THE EDWARDIAN CHILD INSIDE The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett When life gets too complicated for adult for my taste, I return to this children's classic book.  I have it downloaded on my iPad and just tap my fingers in anticipation of reading it aloud at night to my daughter.  This was the first "chapter book" I recall as a child that grabbed me and got me interested in reading.  It is, of course, a tragic, romantic and fanciful novel that combines many of my favorite themes - the mystery of a manor on the English countryside, the magic of gardens and the power of friendship to inspire healing.  The story is likely familiar to many of you -- two young cousins brought together by parental deaths are trapped in a vast and lonely English manor.  They figuratively and literally blossom together with the assistance of household staff and ultimately are bonded through the work of rehabilitating a long-dormant garden.  The characters are heartbreaking and timeless and it is worth a re-read, if, like me, the first time you read it was in 3rd grade.

Does Being an Adult Totally Suck?

Dear Sibyl, I finally feel like a real grown-up and I find it horribly disappointing. I can't imagine a better husband, my two-year-old daughter is awesome, and I love my work. Unfortunately, there's a big but. I was prepared to have a big, important career and I don't think that's possible as a mother of a small child (without being independently wealthy).

My parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be and my husband regularly says he's waiting for me to strike it big, so he can retire. Unfortunately, my career options are high in intellectual, social, and personal rewards, but not so much in financial rewards. My husband isn't going to be retiring on my salary anytime soon, which means his job needs to be the priority.

The part that really gets me is that I will never fully realize my potential career. If there are two working parents, one parent always has to be the one who will figure it out if the babysitter is sick. One parent has to make sure there is food in the fridge and favorite pajamas are washed in time for bed. One parent has to sign on as parent #1 (at least to provide the kind of support that I envision providing to my child). Maybe there is a system where both parents share all child-related responsibilities, but I'm not sure I can imagine it. After all, one of the major tenets of management in a professional context is maintaining individual responsibility: if everyone is responsible no one is.

Most big, important careers demand to be the priority. And I think the realization that made me a grown-up is that you don't get to have two priorities at once in life. I want my child, and eventually children, to be my first priority, but I also want to know what I could have done with my professional life had I been able to give it my all.

Sincerely, Two Paths, One Life

Dear Two Paths, One Life,

Are you sitting down?  Okay, because I’m about to deliver a series of blows that may hurt at first, but hopefully will settle in as the best kind of truth.

First of all, no wonder you are disappointed in adulthood, since you are completely missing the point.  The goal of life is not to be a big, important person who is responsible for everyone and amasses wealth for retirement.  I totally understand why you believe this, as this is our culture’s greatest falsehood, one we shout and whisper and slip into the food we serve.

But, Honey.  Oh, Honey, no.

The choice is not between being a mother and being a big shot.  It’s about being a person of substance, no matter what tasks you find yourself doing.

First of all, we need to address your sign off name.  There are three lives you are talking about here, and three paths, but you have submerged them all into one life---yours.  Of course there's no space to spread your wings!  You have both your husband and your child on your back, and you're stumbling around blindly.

A better metaphor for what should be going on is: One root, three vines.  Your husband and yourself formed the roots of your family tree when you bonded yourselves to one another.  Your lives climb like an ivy plant, branching off in some places, intertwining and holding one another up in others.  Your daughter's is an offshoot, that right now gets all of its nourishment from the roots of your marriage.  However, she'll branch off on her own more and more, and eventually she'll start her own vine, on some other wall.  The way things are now, both of their branches are choking yours, and no one can grow.

I think the problem is that you need to redefine success.  What is “making it” as an adult?  Is it a life of growth, or one you read about in the newspapers?  Because the people making headlines, especially ones with big, important careers, are always falling from grace, in big, important ways.  Just this month: Jesse Jackson Jr., Oscar Pistorius, THE POPE.

You don’t need a big, important career to be a happy adult, you need to be a big, important you.  Be the biggest star of your life.  Be the most important person in your child's life.

Do you want to make something happen?  Then follow your passion and do it!  But if you just want to feel important, then I don't think you will find that kind of validation in a high-paying, high stakes job.  That kind of validation only comes from within.

I want you to let this dream of being this powerful figure die so you can see what rises from the ashes.  I want what rises to be you.

In order to do this, you cannot use management tenets to run your family---your family should be be run on love, and love means everyone pitches in.  So, let go of some of the responsibility for being “Parent #1”, and let your husband plan back-up childcare for once.  And tell him to stop putting pressure on you to strike it big so he never has to work again!  What the hell?

So, perhaps you are not going to be on the cover of TIME magazine.  But, I doubt very seriously that that is because you are devoting your energy towards being a mother, instead.  I believe that you can still have what you want---have a feeling of being a successful adult who makes waves in the world, while still showing up for your children---but it is going to require a worldview shift.

Being an adult means we get to weave together the life we actually want, which, yes, is really difficult, but has the potential to create something totally unique and beautiful.

You are not missing out on fully realizing your potential career, if you are fully realizing your potential self.  You will need to give up the goals of prestige and leisure and take up the goal of love, but I promise you, it’s a better investment.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Expressing Adoration

I adore my life. Adore.  I try to say so frequently. It’s part of a personal commitment of mine to say what I feel, especially the good stuff.  I never want those close to me to think that I don’t/didn’t care or wasn’t grateful for the moment or experience we shared.  I’m the girl who will break the silence to say “I’m glad we’re friends” or “I love my life”; I’m the wife who calls her husband in the middle of the day to say ‘I love you’.  Nothing has done more for me in my adult life than this habit of expressing joy and thanks. I haven't performed any scientific studies (these guys have), but it seems to me that the simple act of saying, or even silently acknowledging, a positive emotion amplifies the same.  I know that I am a happier person since I've adapted habits of gratitude and celebration.  I've always found the 'live-each-day-like-its-your-last' mentality to be rather morbid, I prefer to live each day like its a holiday or a party, I celebrate the everyday.  My grass is quite green, so much so that I find I'm immune to the always-greener syndrome. There's always something to high-five about, maybe its a gorgeous sunset and a glass of wine, maybe its writing something I'm proud of, maybe its making a perfect omelet, maybe its spending a quiet hour reading in bed next to my husband.  The what doesn't matter nearly as much as taking the time, the moment, to smile and say 'Today is a Good Day, I adore my Life'.

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And so, as I write this, I’m standing in my kitchen. It’s a lazy Sunday. I stayed curled under the covers this morning while my husband went out for breakfast, we played some games and watched a James Bond movie and now I’m in the kitchen with an afternoon glass of wine, a tourism brochure for a summer vacation, and a Rolling Stones record on.  As a smile touched my face the word Adore popped into my head.  I adore my life, without question, hesitation, or exemption.  I adore my life and I’m ever so grateful, and I think both are important things to express.  I could go on, but Beast of Burden just started to play, so I’m going to stop writing and go dance around the living room, today is wonderful after all. What better way to celebrate than with a dance?

Lessons from South Africa...

Dearest Clara,

Sometimes when you travel you’ll feel that you have gone just about as far as you can go before circling back around again on the other side of the globe.  My recent trip to South Africa was exactly like that---16 hours on the way there, 18 hours on the way back.  Between the many hours and changes of time, and days that turn to nights and then back to days again, you end up wondering where you really are anyway.  And this time around it was such a blur---so many hours seem even more when you end up on the ground for only four days.

But four days is still plenty of time to make observations, and in South Africa, you can make a lot.  Of all the places I go to for work, South Africa is by far and away my favorite.  Maybe precisely because it is so far.  I'm hoping that one day soon I get to come back all of this way, perhaps even one day with you, to stay in this beautiful country for a bit longer, so that I can really get to know this part of the world that I otherwise have so little exposure to.  In the meantime, I've taken these things home with me:

• Always stop for a sundowner: the first time I really saw this was during my first trip to South Africa when I went on safari (all by myself no less!) No matter where we were driving, when the hour for sunset came, the South Africans were always insistent that we pull over the car, stop what we were doing and have a drink.  This trip, when I was mostly at the hotel and meetings, it was no different.  I was alone again, but seemingly everyday, people were having a moment of their own, usually over a glass. I don't know if it is meant to celebrate a day passed, or whether it is intended perhaps as a moment of gratefulness.  But I've come to love this small acknowledgement of another day that we have been lucky enough to have.
• Anyone can talk about the weather: When you're in a place that's different, and other potential topics plucked from the news or the social fabric might be perceived as unwelcome when broached by an outsider, you can never fail with the weather.  In Johannesburg, it rained every late afternoon when I was there, right around the same time.  A conversation about that day's rain, how it compared to the previous days, whether it would rain again tomorrow always seemed to fill any conversational void I had, no matter the person or their relation to me.  When in doubt, bring up the weather.
• Galleries somewhere else can inspire you: I didn't have much time to do anything other than my work on this trip, but I was lucky to have a few well-known galleries as I was out and about town in meetings.  The great thing about galleries is that they don't take long to see, and they're free. So while I didn't have the time to be a full-on tourist on my trip, I did make time to squeeze in twenty minutes here, half an hour there to pop into galleries.  You can learn a tremendous amount about art from a place, the topics its driven by, the way media of art differs just by taking a few minutes to look.  And chances are, you'll leave inspired to see things differently.
• Every city has a quiet corner: Any city that you don't know, Johannesburg included, can grow to be overwhelming when you don't know your way around.  It's true everywhere.  Sometimes cities give us the opportunity to blend in seamlessly, almost as if no one sees us.  But sometimes cities draw attention to us---in my mind, I can sometimes see a myriad of red arrows pointing at me, screaming to others that I don't belong and I don't know where I'm going.  But any city has a quiet spot---it might be a garden, it might be a coffee shop.  If ever you feel like you don't belong, just find your quiet spot, and recompose.  And every city always looks quiet from up above---if you can't find anywhere else, just go to the highest spot you can find.  You'll always find quiet there.
• Together is better: I had so many people say this to me on trips I've made to South Africa.  In a country that is still working through so many differences that history has left them, when people tell me that despite everything, "together is better", then it serves as a good reminder to me to make sure that I apply that principle in my own life.

All my love,

Mom

Ps  - And in case you might be wondering...no, that's not a real hippo.  It's a hippo I saw at a gallery!

Josephine Baker: Dancer. Spy. Subverter of Racial Assumptions.

 

About six months ago, I wrote about the racist moments that cropped up on the latest cycle of “America’s Next Top Model." (I realize in reality TV-land that this might has well have been the last century, and that about seven seasons have aired since then.) One of the moments that struck me as the most insanely questionable was when a designer dressed up black British model Analiese in a skirt of dangly plush bananas, while he dressed the other two models—both white—in more traditional, Marie Antoinette-style outfits.

It was pointed out to me that the tropical getup may have been purposely evocative of today’s Historical Woman, the amazing Josephine Baker: an American-born French singer, dancer, and all-around entertainer who fought Nazis and racists on the side. One of her most famous stage costumes was a skirt made of dangling bananas, usually accompanied by a complete lack of a top. This throws the whole ANTM affair into a much more complicated and ambiguous place—especially considering Ms. Baker’s agency in marketing her act and image in this way. How to feel about it now?

Let’s start with the banana skirt. The garment has been alternately described as problematic and empowering, as an accessory of European colonialist fantasy and as a tool that Baker knowingly used to subvert racial and gender categories. In this way, the skirt is really a microcosm for her entire career, at least in the early decades.

When Josephine Baker, born Freda McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, arrived in Paris in 1925, France was obsessed with black culture. For them, Josephine—who appeared in a show called “La Revue Nègre”—was a safe venue for their fantasies about “the savage,” a figure often extolled as the antidote to a spiritually oppressive civilization. That Josephine was from Missouri and not deepest Africa seemed to mean little to her French fans and critics.

“The white imagination sure is something when it comes to blacks,” Josephine quipped. I like to think she meant: “White people sure can be racist!”

Baker appeared in a number of shows in which she was usually scantily clad, often portraying a “savage” who meets a French colonial explorer and dances to the accompaniment of African drums. See a video of one such dance here. Critics rhapsodized about her primal vitality and her exotic looks. Picasso extolled her “coffee skin, ebony eyes, and legs of paradise,” and she was admired by everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Jean Cocteau (oh, Paris in the 1920s!).

While the banana skirt and the “primitive” dances, as well as the audience reaction, may induce discomfort in a modern mind (like mine), it’s possible that in the context of her time Josephine was exercising an unprecedented kind of power, even as she reproduced the stereotypes that still popularly characterized her race. Her particular brand of entertainment was insanely marketable and earned her great success and admiration. She herself may have been the one who invented the banana skirt—thus it was not, as the liberal imagination (like mine) might like to infer, foisted upon her by a racist white stage manager. Either way, she certainly took advantage of its popularity, advocating for everything from banana moisturizers to pomades to custards that bore her name. (This last was actually created by Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s GFF. Oh, Paris in the 1920s!)

Josephine Baker’s crazy whirlwind of a life was by no means limited to her stage career. During World War II, Josephine was a spy for the French Resistance movement. Thus, she joins Julia Child in the “unlikely spy” category. (Waiting for Josie & Josephine.) Her Europe-wide performing career was the perfect cover for her to casually participate in—and then remember-- all sorts of important conversations, and she passed the info on to the Allies, aiding Charles de Gaulle and his Free French buddies.

What motivated this singer/dancer to enter the world of political intrigue? It’s true that she was a devoted nouveau francaise and that she loved her adopted country—but even more, Josephine hated Nazis. “The Nazis were racist,” she told Ebony magazine in 1973. “They were bigots. I despised that sort of thing and was determined that they must be defeated.”

As a result of her service to France, Josephine became the first American woman to receive a full French military funeral upon her death in 1975, an event that shut down the streets of Paris. She even got a 21-gun salute, which, apparently, is more than just a Green Day song.

There’s really too much more to say about Josephine in this confined space. For example: She adopted twelve children from different countries and called them her “Rainbow Tribe” (way before Angelina Jolie). She lived in a fifteenth-century French castle. She had pet cheetahs. She participated in the Civil Rights Movement and was asked by Coretta Scott King to help lead it following the assassination of King’s husband. (Baker declined, probably for safety reasons.) She refused to play to segregated audiences on her U.S. tour and thus helped accelerate integration.

Josephine Baker’s legacy continues to inspire many women to this day, and her image—often, but not always, including that infamous banana skirt—pops up in the most unlikely of places. Look for her cameos in Midnight in Paris, The Triplets of Belleville, and the animated Anastasia. Even Beyoncé has paid tribute.

I wonder now what Josephine would think of where we are now, both in the U.S. and Europe. She was happy with the progress that had been made even in her own lifetime. But how far have we really come? To what extent do we still exoticize women of color? Even as overt, sickening racism becomes less frequent, what subtler forces are at play that continue to reveal and reinforce power imbalances between whites and minorities?

I’m optimistic that, at the very least, the visceral discomfort induced in liberal-minded minds (like mine) by seeing a black woman dressed in a banana skirt by a white man on TV means we’ve at least made some progress.

On lentil soup and economizing.

We've been on a lentil soup kick lately. Red lentils, french lentils, any old lentil we can find for cheap in the bulk section of our grocery store, we've been buying it. There's not a recipe that we've been using so much as a series of habits: sauté some amount of savory onion or shallot or leek in butter or oil, add lentils and other scattered nubs of carrots or leafy greens, add sea salt and water and heat until a soup develops that's nourishing and warming and everything that wintertime food ought to be. Last week I made one such batch of soup and served it to friends. I won't say I wasn't a bit shy at the prospect. Somewhere along the way, I've gotten the impression that food served to company should be better-than-usual fare. Even if you're on a tight budget, heating up a packet of ramen noodles and inviting friends for dinner doesn't seem like quite the right thing to do. Serving bowls of lentil soup seemed like the slightly more healthful equivalent. 

When you're still relatively young and childless in this city---or maybe at any time---going out with friends can be almost astonishingly expensive. Cocktails at one bar run you a day's food allowance and before the end of the night you can easily spend as much as you've allotted for the entire week's groceries and then some. Inviting friends to your home for a pot of lentil soup seems terribly boring in the face of artisan cocktails and mustachioed waiters and oozing cheese platters. 

But when my husband and I realized that our plan to live frugally in 2013 had meant that we'd allowed January to slip by without spending substantial time with any our friends, we resolved to reassess. Our conclusion is utterly predictable: invite your friends over for lentil soup. The truth is that no matter how humble the ingredients, lentil soup is delicious and having friends to your apartment for any kind of meal is better than never having them over at all.

There are some lessons I'm not sure why I've taken so very long to learn.

Looking Forward: Truths.

When I was little, I thought hiccups could be captured in a tiny invisible box. I believed that if I thought hard enough---imagined myself sitting on the box, and nailing it shut, and applying a layer of glue, and locking it tight---they could be smothered, extinguished, conquered. I also believed that the food on my plate had feelings, and would be hurt if I didn’t eat it. And that somewhere in the world, dinosaurs still existed. And that one day, I might grow up to be a mermaid.

---

In last week's post, I mentioned the elementary school I attended in L.A., which included dance as part of its progressive curriculum. In addition to that, we spent a period of time each day discussing problems---things that made us angry or sad, or that troubled us. We would sit in a circle and offer thoughts or advice on whatever issues arose.

Inevitably, as children who attended private school and whose time on Earth hadn’t yet exceeded a decade, our problems tended to skew toward the lightweight. Rebecca pushed me on the blacktop. Joey threw dirt. Shoko put grass in my shoes. (Someone actually brought this one up one day; I still strongly dispute that it ever happened.)

Some incidents, in retrospect, were funny. “Joey showed me his middle finger today,” I remember one girl telling the class. “That means something bad.” She looked at the teacher. “Can I say what it means?”

“Yes, you can say what it means,” said the teacher.

“It means fuck,” said the little girl, her last word a whisper.

But the remark I remember most clearly made an impression for another reason. “I don’t want time to go by,” a little boy said. “Because I don’t want my mom and dad to get older and I don’t want them to die.”

I sat in my place in the circle on the floor, a strange sensation building in the pit of my stomach. It was a thought that had crossed my mind before, but one that was too terrifying to touch. Thinking about it made it a possibility.

The fact that someone else put words to it made it real.

---

I read a poem recently, a sad one. It was called Lies I’ve Told My 3 Year Old Recently, written by Raul Gutierrez. “Trees talk to each other at night,” reads the first line. “Tiny bears live in drain pipes,” reads another. “If you are very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.”

It continues for a few lines, then ends: “Books get lonely too. / Sadness can be eaten. / I will always be there.”

It made me think of things I believed as a child.

That people, if they were special enough, lived forever. That I could fly. That someday I’d see the entire world. That I’d always be happy.

None of these things are true. And realizing this over time has created a special sort of sadness. But, as a friend pointed out to me today, there are things we know now that we didn’t believe were true as children. For instance, that not being able to draw a tree that looks like a real tree, or a cat that looks like a real cat, or a face that looks like a real face, doesn’t make you a bad artist. That you can be terrible at geometry and chemistry and trigonometry---anything involving numbers, really---and still be smart. That being weird is cool.

That there are worse things in the world than sadness.

A sustainable practice

The most effortless project I’ve completed was the writing of my senior thesis, a collection of poetry and translation relating to the book of Genesis. I suppose it’s no coincidence that I was fixating, even then, on beginnings. I spent some time in the summer doing a bit of research, and when I returned to school in the Fall, I had no idea what the actual writing process would look like over the course of the next six or seven months. I’d spent many sleepless nights wringing academic papers from my brain over the previous three years, and I knew I needed a more sustainable process if I was to make it to the finish line, sanity intact and thesis in hand.

In my first meeting with my advisor, he gave me a piece of advice that, at the time, I found funny. In retrospect, I think of it as earth-shattering. He told me to write first thing in the morning.

I must have asked what he really meant by “first thing,” because I remember his insistence: DO NOT brush your teeth, DO NOT eat breakfast, DO NOT get dressed, DO NOT do anything before you sit down to write. OK, you can have coffee. But everything else will get in your way. Just write, first thing.

This advice must have been personal, because, at the time, I didn’t drink coffee. He must have been sharing what worked in his own practice. In any case, I took his advice very seriously, and I’ve thought about it a lot since.

I arranged my course schedule so that I had a couple of mornings free during the week, and I did my other work at night. I took his coffee exception to mean that I could choose a couple of my own non-negotiables, as long as I could do them on autopilot.

So for a few mornings a week, before my anxiety or inhibitions could get the best of me—in other words, before I had a chance to get in my own way—I did what I needed to do to feel vaguely human, and then I wrote. Later on, I was editing or rewriting, but the process was the same.

I didn’t start by searching for inspiration or thinking particularly hard about what I needed to do. I just showed up at my table for a couple of hours, did what I knew how to do, and then, for the rest of the day, took care of the business of living. It was like starting the day with an offering to the muses. You can sleep in, I was telling them. I got this.

It reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity, in which she emphasizes the importance of simply showing up and doing the work. I also think of the recent New York Times article on working less and accomplishing more when I consider the relatively limited number of hours I spent working in comparison to the amount of material I needed to produce. It was all about the quality of those hours, not the quantity.

Since I’m no longer a student, it’s been a process of trial and error trying to reestablish this sort of practice in my differently arranged life. The peculiar blessing/curse of the student is that she tends to have a great deal of control over her schedule. But even in my post-student life, I am comforted by a sense that the process of setting a goal and actually accomplishing it depends very little on talent or magic or circumstance and very much on creating rituals and habits that support simply showing up and doing the work over the long haul.

xxiv. provence

I come home from classes to find Agnès fuming in my room. According to her, it’s been at least several years since I washed my sheets or swept my floor, two things I insisted upon doing myself. But since these bits of housework are in my space and not hers, she can’t control them. This woman needs more hobbies.

It’s fine for Jérôme to act like this, but you? A woman? She’s yelling at me now. How do you expect to get a husband like this? How will you cook for him? How will you clean for him?

The more her voice rises, my face turns stony and emotionless. I say nothing as I lace up my running shoes and shut the door to the apartment behind me. I race through the night streets for a long time, wanting to run out my anger before I go back. I don’t want to say anything that could get me in trouble with ACCP, something like, you have wasted your entire life, Agnès, and never again feel like you can comment on mine.

A Beautiful Life

Dear Sibyl, What do you think is the best and most gracious way to keep social life simple? I get a lot of requests to do things both for fun and on the professional level (i.e. sit on a committee or board) and I also want to have a good amount of unscheduled time, because I know that is what works for me, to keep me sane. But what is a good way to do this in a world that encourages frantic activity?

Sincerely, Lil’ Miss Popular

Dear Ms. Popular,

The most frequent answer to the question "How are you these days?" is "Busy!"  What if people answered this question a bit more accurately and said, "I have a lot of tasks to complete all the time, but inwardly I feel a little disconnected."  Because that is the true definition of a busy life.

Time is social capital.  First of all, I'd like to commend you for taking the time to consider your social commitments and seek to knit something together that supports you individually as well as helps you feel a part of a greater community.

Much of our lives are made up of the people we spend it with.  Some of that we don't have a whole lot of choice about: the co-worker that is hired after you and talks your ear off about their skydiving obsession, the fellow dog owner who tries to get you involved in puppy politics at the dog park, the neighbor with the backfiring van who will never move out.

So, when you have a rare hour of free time, you want to be sure you are investing it in something or someone who will add depth and continuity to your life, rather than feeling like you are flitting around from one commitment to the next, always playing catch-up with each person.

Personally, I often find myself falling head over heels for a person or an organization, and throwing myself into that friendship or activity with great fervor, only to find out a year down the line that they were not who I thought they were, or that I've outgrown them.  If I stopped doing this, however, my life would remain stagnant, and I would eventually feel isolated from my own lack of willingness to risk and put my whole self into my relationships and endeavors.

Carl Jung had the idea that we are drawn to people who have something that we need, and can help us realize those parts of ourselves.  Over time, we are meant to start doing those things on our own, and when we do, we may find that what we were meant to learn from that person, and what we had to share with them, has made the relationship redundant.

Does that mean you need to stop calling your best friend from elementary school, who have little in common with now but love seeing, for the tether she gives you to the past?  No, but I would suggest saving visits with her for special times: her birthday, when the band whose songbook the two of you have memorized comes to town, or a holiday you love spending with her.

This may free you (and your old friend) up to do some new things.  When you do, consider, "How is this going to help me grow as person?  What is it about this activity or friend that I am particularly drawn to?  Is that something I really want more of in my life?"

For instance, you may be excited about a certain couple because they have great parties that look cool on Instagram and give you blog fodder.  If that is really your only connection to them, I suggest giving them a very slim slice of your life, perhaps accepting only every third invitation.  However, if you have a friend who is exceptionally kind to your child, and who could teach you how to make terrariums, and remembers to ask after your sick cat, see if she can meet you for coffee tomorrow.

I have to say I am quite taken with your idea of preserving unscheduled time.  Perhaps you can block that out in your calendar, and write "Reserved for Spontaneity" in the square.  Then, when you are asked to fill that time with volunteer work or a baby shower, just say, "I cannot.  I have an engagement with my mind."  Then everyone will think you are weird and won't invite you places anymore anyway and you'll have lots of free time!

I am being a little silly there, but honestly, you have the right to curate your own life.  Consider your calendar like an art exhibit, and choose the pieces that inspire you the most and that you want to look at all the time to hang on the walls of your days.

Feel free to create something beautiful with your community and your time, even if this means turning down some invitations.  Choose beauty, however sparse that may be for you, over busy-ness.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Paper Hearts

I love my wonderfully magnificent husband.  He loves me right back.  Today, however, I will not be receiving anything heart-shaped from Kay Jewelers.  We will not be spending $250 on dinner at a restaurant where we typically eat for less than half that price.  Although it is entirely possible that I will gorge myself on chocolate treats (this is essentially known as “Thursday” in our house) and while it is fundamental to our marriage that we demonstrate love openly and frequently, it feels forced to do so specifically on Valentine’s Day. Aside from the fact that the Holiday originates in the veneration of a Saint (which is not really our thing), Valentine’s Day has never seemed terribly significant in our lives.  Perhaps it is this way for many married people, couples that have been together for a while or couples that came together a bit later in life.  I said, A BIT.  But before you decide that I am the exact opposite of fun or light-hearted, please know that I have certainly done the whole shebang for Valentine’s Day at various points in my illustrious romantic career.  I have coordinated and participated in elaborate spa getaways, decadent meals, surprise concerts - you name it – as well as the giving and receiving of delicately packaged items.  I do also recollect from my dating years the buzzy thrill of a person asking you out for Valentine’s Day - a sure sign (much like the first road trip together) that the relationship has bumped up to the next level.  And we haven’t even touched on my experience working in retail flower shops for days on end to prepare endless vases with floral expressions of love.  I have been there.  I have done that.

It should also be noted that I am in full support of the tradition of children crafting Valentines and learning to formally display affection for others.  I think it is ridiculously sweet to introduce any mode of creative correspondence, particularly for children growing up in the age of the iPad mini.  When parents and teachers of young children are sensitive about distributing classroom Valentines, it presents a genuine opportunity to learn about inclusivity.  I recall concrete lessons from my early elementary years about making each of my classmates feel exceptional.  For many little ones, the template for empathy comes from this kind of social experience. 

I think my primary issue with Valentine’s Day is that like with so many things in our culture, we have decided (somewhat arbitrarily) that this is the single day each year that we publicly acknowledge the love we have for the people around us.  I am much more concerned with keeping my relationship fresh and conveying appreciation during the daily slog.  It is not tremendously complicated to throw money at one of the many clichéd offerings on February 14^th.  The real labor of love, in my view, is to make eye contact and tender a bear hug during the morning greeting; to remember to ask your partner how the big meeting went today; to not finish all the ice cream yourself.  Enduring love means being the one who gets up before dawn with the baby because your cohort doesn’t “do mornings.”  It means not freaking the fuck out even though this has got to be the 794,375^th time you have picked a ball of socks up off the floor.  It means never, ever, ever checking out mentally or emotionally.

I haven’t picked out a card or made reservations anywhere.  I will be wearing regular, nondescript, cotton undergarments all day.  But I hope he will consider my abiding commitment to nurturing our life together a most treasured and heartfelt Valentine.

A love Letter to my Friends

This Valentine’s Day, I could tell you about my husband, but we’ve never been big into the holiday, and besides I already penned my sweet romantic column on our anniversary. Instead I’d like to discuss another love, the wonder that is a best friend. How awesome are best friends? Is there really anything better? I don’t believe there is.  A best friend often knows you just as well as a spouse or partner, they’re certainly just as vital to your sanity, and of course, deserving of much love and chocolate.

For me, best friends come in pairs.  In first grade I made first one then a second best friend. For eight years if I wasn’t talking to one of them, I was probably talking to the other. The countless sleepovers, passed notes, birthday parties, mall pretzels, and phone calls that followed us from My Little Pony to first crushes created a history so tight and filled that even after years of not being in constant contact, we’re still connected. This weekend I traveled back to my hometown to attend a baby shower of one of my childhood best friends.  It was amazing to me that even not having seen each other for several years, and even with our different lifestyles, I could sit and talk for hours with either girl. I think that really shows what a bond friendship is, especially best friends. It’s a bond capable of stretching through time and space without breaking.

In college, I met two more best friends.  These girls I studied with, ate midnight pancakes with, went to parties with.  We saw each other through boyfriends and breakups and the pressure of deciding what we wanted to do with our lives. We visited each other’s homes, met the respective parents, and even shared an apartment.  When graduation rolled around, we were happy to be moving on to bigger and better things, but deeply sad that we wouldn’t see each other every day.  Today we’re still thick as thieves even though distance may separate us.  We talk on the phone, text silly stories, and send a flurry of emails.  When I lived out of the country, the daily emails always brought a smile to my face and made me feel connected with my home even though I was on the other side of the world.

The thing that amazes me most about best friends is the pure chance and luck involved.  I met my two best friends when we all happened to live on the same floor our freshman year of college. If anyone of us had chosen a different school or even a different dorm, would we have met? We had nothing else in common so I’m not sure that we would have.  And if we hadn’t met, would I still be the same person I am today?  I doubt it.

Who you click with and who you don’t is obviously subjective.  Just like romantic partners, some folks look good on paper, but in person there’s no spark.  But to my knowledge, there’s no such thing as an e-harmony for best friends; there’s not speed dating or blind dates.  It’s much chancier. Maybe you find someone who understands you to the depths of your soul, who will tell you in the kindest possible terms not to wear that dress, who will make you laugh until you can’t breathe.  Maybe you’ll find someone who protects your emotions and understands your fears without you having to speak them.  Maybe you’ll find someone to banter with to question the world with and to ponder the plural form with; someone to talk you off the ledge when things are bad and give you a high five when they’re good.  If you’re lucky enough to find that person, well then as the saying goes, you’re lucky enough.  If you’re lucky enough to have two best friends, I truly believe there is nothing you cannot fight through and nothing you cannot accomplish with that power at your side.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the Best Friends out there, and a special shout-out to mine: You guys are crazy fantastic and I don't say it often enough.  Thank you for always being exactly what I needed, having my back without question, never being bothered by my nuttiness, riding through the crazy vortexes that life brings, and making me laugh for 10 years (yes, we are that old). I am so grateful the universe put us in each-others paths. Happy Valentines Day L & L, I love you bunches.

Lessons from a Valentine's Day...

Dearest Clara,

Happy Valentine’s Day! I know it seems a little corny to be wishing you a happy valentine’s day, but this is one of my favorite holidays. While some people see it as sappy and romantic, or commercial and forced, and granted, it can feel that way sometimes, I prefer to see it as a celebration of love among family and friends.  It’s an opportunity to recognize people who are important to us openly, and also an opportunity to recognize people sometimes a bit more secretly.  After all, who isn’t flattered by secret admirers?

My fondest Valentine’s memory though was a gift from my mother.  I was 12, and she woke me up early before her call shift at the hospital to give my gift: 3 pink Bic razors with a small can of shaving cream, all wrapped up in red tissue and in a small gift bag with hearts on it.  It couldn’t have cost more than a few dollars and I remember it like it was yesterday.  I had been begging to shave my legs, like all the other girls at school, for months, and I thought she would never say yes.  Turns out, my mom was more progressive (or perhaps more understanding of the need of junior high vanity) than I thought. . . It meant the world to me, and every year, I think of how excited I felt that she really took to heart what I had been wanting.

Here is the way I try to celebrate an extra touch of love on this day:

• Give valentines to everyone: When you’re young, hopefully in school they’ll get you in the habit of including everyone in Valentines.  Want to know why? Because it’s such a nice feeling when you’re included; and it’s such a sad feeling when you’re not.  Try to make room for as many people as you can in your Valentine’s day heart.
• Wear at least a little bit of red: Nothing over the top, but having a little touch of red, even if it’s somewhere not everyone can see, will put you in the holiday spirit and remind you to be extra loving towards those around you.
• Be weary of set Valentine’s menus at restaurants: In my experience, these never turn out for the best, neither in food, nor in your enjoyment of the evening.  If you go out, find a restaurant that treats this as a normal day, or prepare a celebration with a group in a non-traditional spot.
• Leave a surprise for someone you admire: Valentines are about relationships, but not everything has to be defined as a couple.  You can feel admiration for someone and not necessarily feel it in a romantic way—just don’t confuse the two for them.
• Be extra mindful of anyone you care about in “that way”: No matter how much people say they might not like or not care or not endorse Valentine’s day, I think everyone ends up holding out a little hope for it in the end.  So if you are with someone, make the effort to do something a bit more meaningful.  It doesn’t have to be serious, and it doesn’t have to be heart shaped boxes full of chocolates (unless they like it)—but do something that shows that you’re thinking about them and appreciate them in your life.

Wishing all my love to my darling Valentine,

Mom

Snow

I was going to post the animated trailer for Stranger Here today, but the big social media release date is 2/25, so I'm going to have to wait. . . So instead I’ll tell you a story.

I met a guy the other night who asked me, “Have you ever made a business plan? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, ‘I can achieve my goals?’” “I haven’t,” I said, “but I guess I should.”

He asked me, “What percentage of you is committed to achieving your goals? On a scale of one to a hundred, what percent committed are you?” I thought about it, I looked down, I looked up at him. “I’d say 95 to 100 percent,” I said. He laughed. “It’s not a test, you’re not on a game show.”

We had just watched my boss compete for a job, on a reality television show. He didn’t really want the job, but it was a chance to be on television, which is what he really wants to do. His actual job is owning a restaurant, which is where we were, drinking boxed wine. It was really snowing for the first time this year.

We went outside into the snow. We threw snowballs. Mine went in gentle arcs, smashing to powder on people’s coats. The business plan guy would hide behind a car until we were all ahead of him and then hit us from behind, hard.

The staff of the gelato place was outside and we had a snowball fight with them. After a while, a girl on their team asked a guy on our team whose team he was on, and he said, “I don’t even know anymore!” I yelled at him and threw a snowball at him. “You hit me in the dick! You hit me in the dick!” he yelled. But he wasn’t mad and I didn’t feel bad. I said, “That’s what you get for being a traitor!” He said, “Yeah, I deserved it.”

There were tequila shots inside. Aida and I told the boy I hit in the dick that he should shave his beard. He said, “Sometimes I shave off this part, so it’s just a goatee.” “Noooooo!” we said, “that’s worse!”

We went down the street to a bar and there was dancing in the basement. We danced with two 22 year old fetuses. One of them said to me, pointing to my hair, “Why the bob? I love it! You’re so retro!” I wanted to say, I’m not retro, I’m just ten years older than you, but I didn’t want to kill the moment.

Aida said to me, “Attack them with the hair!” and we shook our hair in their faces, her long black hair and my retro bob.

Sometimes everything comes together---how things look, what you’re doing, who you’re with, and who you are right then---and you can feel it all existing as one thing, separated out in time. Like a knot in a string.

The next day I thought about  my business plan. I don’t have one. But I have looked myself in the mirror and said, “Go for it.” I have had a flash, while carrying a stack of glasses across the restaurant where I work, and thought to myself, “This is my life! This is my life this is my life this is my life.” And thought, I want to get that tattooed somewhere so I see it every day, but in French or something, so I don’t get sick of it, so it can become just letters most of the time.

Can I Hate Chris Brown?

For the record, I don’t hate anybody. Some celebrities—Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian---get on my nerves. And there are other male superstars who have mistreated women, physically, sexually, and/or verbally---Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Sheen—who piss me off/gross me out/don’t deserve to be successful.

But hate is such a strong word.

The titular question flitted through my mind as I viewed the recap of his latest douchebag escapade on E! News. Chris apparently got into a dust-up last week with singer Frank Ocean over a parking spot outside Frank’s studio. Shoves/punches may have been thrown, including one from Brown at Ocean. Of course, it doesn't sound like the fight was as crazy as Drakegate 2012, which had Brown and Drake and their respective crews throwing shit from across an NYC dance floor at each other, apparently in a tiff over Rihanna. Which was then, as any good fight is these days, taken to Twitter.

But while Brown-Drake 2012 was like, WTF, Ocean-Brown 2013 is like, Chris Brown just go the fuck away. First of all, I love Frank Ocean. He’s adorable, he’s subverting heteronormative sexuality, and he sings beautiful songs that make me cry. (See here and here. Gah.) Second, Chris Brown took it—yes—to Twitter and posted a photo of Jesus on the cross and noted “the way I feel today”. Obviously, this is completely ridiculous in this context, but let’s zoom out a second and remember that there is literally never a situation where you compare yourself to Jesus that doesn’t make you look like an asshole. Which is what he is. GO AWAY.

This is by no means the first time I’ve pondered whether I really hate Chris Brown. The last time was on Halloween, when he and his buddies decided it was a clever idea to dress up as the Taliban. Long, shaggy beards, dusty turbans, rags, AK-47s and all. On top of being tasteless, there’s more than a whiff of casual racism happening here, as tends to happen whenever the “terrorist” costume idea pops up.

Then there was the time he said this to comedian Jenny Johnson on Twitter: “take them teeth out when u Sucking my dick HOE” Sure, she had just called him a worthless piece of shit, but it doesn’t need to be reiterated that misogynistic, sexually threatening insults are not the correct response. Especially when you’re Chris Brown, and you a) are already known to have beaten a woman, and b) do, in all truth, deserve to be called a WPOS.

And yes, lest we forget, God forbid, the number one reason why anyone should ever feel like hating—or, serious minimum, hating on—Chris Brown: he brutally beat his then-girlfriend* Rihanna and did no jail time**. Nothing will ever make that okay, really. He’ll always have done that, and that will always be unacceptable. That it was such a public escapade, and that Rihanna herself was arguably even more famous than him, made it a much greater lightning rod for outrage than aforementioned messrs. Sheen, Schwarzenegger et. al. who have also mistreated women less famous/powerful than themselves. This is true.

*And now-girlfriend. But that’s an outrage for another day. **He may have also not done the community service he was sentenced to. Let's just add that to the outrages.

But the fact that certain crimes draw less outrage doesn’t mean we’re making too big a deal over Chris Brown’s criminal douchiness. It means we’re not making a big enough deal about all the rest. And: Chris Brown still lives his life unmolested. Chris Brown still has a career. Chris Brown still got to perform at the Grammys last year in a “comeback” tour that seemed to have amnesia about why he had to “come back” at all.

All the other stuff is just frosting on a bad-person cake. Also, let’s not forget that by continuing to support him, when he hasn’t made any significant public effort to address and apologize for his actions, we send a message that what he did was okay. . . that it was on par with (or even, less than) those times Lindsay Lohan drove without a license, or Winona Ryder shoplifted. Just another oops! celebrity screwup. (Which, incidentally, is probably a countdown show on the E! network.) For proof, view this disturbing assortment of statements from (where else) Twitter, collected after his Grammy’s performance last year, where various women say something to the effect that "Chris Brown's so hot he can beat me any day." Takeaway: We all still have work to do.

Hate is a strong word. But it’s definitely okay—maybe even necessary?—to hate on Chris Brown.

Trippin' Out Before the Trip Begins

There is an axiom, said by Confucius or Carnival Cruise Lines:  the couple that travels together, stays together.  In the five years I’ve been dating Zack, we’ve been to Europe and South America, the California coast and Los Angeles, Boston and the British countryside.   We have not, thus far, killed each other.  We’ve made it through the Spanish siesta time where every restaurant closes at exactly the time your stomach begins grumbling. We’ve survived a white knuckled bus ride that careened around Ecuadorian cliffs, dropping us several thousand feet in elevation in approximately 10 minutes.  When we’re fighting on a damp British day, we can look back at our pictures from a beach in Columbia, me in a bikini, him with a sun burnt nose and beer in hand and say, oh yeah.  I remember when everything felt wonderful. This, though, is not a column about traveling with a significant other.  It’s not chock full of tips about how to make it a rewarding experience for both of you (be flexible about scheduling your days!  Take time to explore by yourself!  Take probiotics; a wildly pooping partner tends to dampen the romance!).  Today, I’d like to talk about what happens before the trip even begins.

I am a planner.  After booking a flight, I’ll spend hours perusing TripAdvisor, Google images, Lonely Planet and Rick Steves (whom I may or may not have a small crush on).  I’ll Wikipedia the history of my destination; I won’t book a hostel until I’ve cross-referenced it on at least three sites.  This is in stark contrast to my regular life, where I spend much of my time searching for lost keys or money, or solving the case of the missing shoe.

There is a school of thought that suggests most of the happiness gained from a trip comes from the act of planning it, rather than being on the trip itself.  A study of 1,530 Dutch adults showed that planning a vacation boosted happiness for 8 weeks prior, while after the vacation, happiness levels quickly returned to normal.  The pleasure, it suggests, come from the anticipation of the vacation more than the vacation itself.  This is me, to a T:  when I’m on-line, scouring for deals and reviews and background, the picture of the place that I’m going is coming into tighter, brighter focus.  Instead of any beach, it’s a white sand one with turquoise water and an unusually good donut stand; instead of any Old Town, it’s the one where I can still see the bullet holes in the stones from World War II.  The more I know, the more I can picture myself there, and the more excited I get.

Zack, on the other hand, likes to wing it.  We’re planning a trip to Portugal and southern Spain right now, and when we were trying to figure out what cities we wanted to include, his eyes glazed over somewhere between Lisbon and Lagos.  “If we spend more time in Lagos,” I said, “we’ll have more warm beachiness, but then we’ll have to cut out some time in Cordoba.”

He sighed.  “What’s good about Cordoba again?”

“Here.”  I turned the computer to face him, and began clicking through images I’d opened.  “I’ll show you.”

“Liz,” he said.  “I don’t want to see all of this.”

“Why not?” I asked.  “I’m not planning this trip on my own.”

Here is what the study does not address:  when your partner is unhappy, you will likely be unhappy.

“I don’t like doing this,” Zack said.  “Going through pictures, getting an idea in my head of what it’s going to be like.  The real thing will never be the same, better or worse.   Flooding yourself with the place before you go removes the newness you get to experience when you first arrive.”

I paused; I’d never thought of this.  Still, for me it was simple math:  given the choice of happiness for a few months prior to a trip and slightly less happiness in the week or so I was on it, I would always choose the former.  For Zack, the authenticity of the experience mattered more than the fantasy leading up to it.  No amount of happiness derived from planning could make up for marring the moment itself.

Most things travel related merely serve to magnify that which exists in normal day-to-day life; this is why traveling is a test of a relationship.  I tend to be a person who thrives in fantasy. I write books and hang out with characters that are only real to me all day; I’ve always been someone who will spend much of the time in the present dreaming wistfully of another time.  Zack is more grounded in reality: he’s constantly assessing the world as it is so that he can invent products that fit in with it.  The constraints when he’s making said products are grounded in the real world; is there an existing part for this element, or does he need to create one?  When the pieces are in place and he flicks the power switch, he can’t write a successful outcome; it needs to actually happen.

We haven’t entirely solved our problem. I take the lead on planning now, just as I clean the bathroom or he handles the laundry, both tasks the other despises.  Still, there’s a part of me that misses sharing those dreamy moments with him, and I have no doubt there’s a part of him that craves the surprise reveal of the picture falling into place in an instant.

Do you and your partner sync up in your approach to planning, or fantasy in life in general?  If not, how do you deal with it?

Looking Forward: Movement.

We sat in a circle on the first day of ballet class, thirty-or-so adults on the floor. Our teacher was a lovely woman with the sort of soothing presence you’d hope for in an introductory-level dance class meant for grown-ups, and she'd asked each of us to share three things with the group: our name, our level of dance experience, and whether we had any injuries to report. “My name is Shoko,” I said when it was my turn. “I was probably in kindergarten the last time I took a dance class. And my body feels fine.”

Next to me sat a man who must have been in his mid-sixties. He had an angular face, a friendly smile, hair that glinted silver. He introduced himself, telling us he was the proud father of two dancers, now grown.

“Any aches and pains?” the teacher asked.

The man smiled. “I’ve lived a colorful life.”

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When I was little, I attended a tiny, progressive elementary school in Los Angeles where grades didn’t exist, teachers were called by their first names, and instead of P.E., students were taught dance.

If I remember correctly, it wasn’t any specific sort of dance---it was interpretive. Whatever we wanted it to be. We were told to make shapes with our bodies, to move any way we wished, to feel free.

I knew even then that this was not something that came easily to me.

I remember feeling self-conscious, vulnerable. Like I was sharing something private.

Twenty years down the line, that feeling hasn’t completely faded. Dancing---without having had a drink or two, that is---is an intensely self-conscious experience. “I’m not coordinated,” I tell people when the subject arises. “My body just doesn’t work that way.”

In spite of it all, I signed up for a six-week ballet workshop a few weeks ago with a friend. A difficult year behind me, it seemed like a good decision. It would be a new adventure, a new way of learning to let go.

There’s a poem by Rumi that reads, in part: “Dance, when you’re broken open. / Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. / Dance in the middle of the fighting. / Dance in your blood. / Dance when you’re perfectly free.”

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We ended our first ballet class with a dance across the floor. First, we practiced moving our feet in the right direction, mimicking the motions of our teacher. We slid and scooted across the room in a halting way, colliding from time to time, the room a tangle of limbs.

We did this twice.

“Now add the arms,” said our instructor. “Do whatever movement comes naturally.”

I swung my arms slowly. I felt stiff, a little robotic. But open, too.

When class was over, I was also a bit sore.

A symptom of a colorful life in the making, I can only hope.