Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. ~~henry david thoreau, Walden

In this first week of summer vacation, I find myself guilty of overreacting to every spilled drop of water and every word spoken by others. I feel out of sorts; misplaced; without a space to call my own.

None of these are true, of course. I am home for the next 9 weeks or so, home with my family, and home under my own roof, in my own space, where I get to say how dirty or clean my desk is. The derailment, I think, comes from embracing what “living deliberately” is all about.

We get in a groove, don’t we, living this way or that? As a teacher, I spend 9 months working intensely with hundreds of students and dozens of colleagues in a very electric environment. I cannot walk down two consecutive hallways without greeting someone who shares that experience with me. There is nothing like it in the world, and even if you are not directly related to the experience of that electricity, you can feel the hum in your step, as the jazz band practices for an upcoming show or dance company brings the stage wood to life; maybe the hum is in the learning itself, where no words can capture the resonance of minds gathering, assimilating, sharing newly discovered meanings. You don’t have to see it or hear it to feel it. You just have to open yourself up to receive it.

Much like the everyday sounds we take for granted around us. Stop for just a moment and listen to what’s going on around you. Maybe you can hear the hum of traffic moving along outside, or maybe that mockingbird’s back in your front tree, and he just continues to sing and sing, whether you are listening or not. These are sounds that have been humming around you this entire time; all you had to do was open up to them and allow them to come in.

The hum that continues at school is within me now, but I cannot look to this summer environment to match it, to harmonize with it. This home has its own hum, and I need to hear what it has to say, align and be a part of this groove, this summer soundtrack of life, and embrace it fully.

It seems to me that this is one of the easiest ways to avoid derailment from those spilled drops or misinterpreted words. Open your mind, your heart. Listen to the hum. Resonate….and simply flow.

Only then will we enjoy this new hum. We never got off the tracks; we simply changed the scenery a little along the journey.

A note to my readers: The Fine 99 is a new series of essays focusing on my beliefs of what is most important in life. After I am finished with this series, I’ll see what I’ve written to see if it’s worthy of a collection of essays to pitch as a book. I’ll let the angle, the threads and the themes emerge as they will without too much forethought. Otherwise, I’ll feel a little boxed in to write exclusively about this or that, in this way or that way…If in the end a collection of essays rises from these words, then I’ll take the next step in publishing them. If not, well then I’m sure the ride will serve some greater purpose that I need not mind myself with at this moment.

What is your fine 99?

Happy Summer Solstice, all.

This day, where solstice is recognized officially at 8:26 a.m. here on the east coast, signifies the moment when the sun is farthest from the earth. It is the “longest day” of the year, and beginning at 8:27 a.m., we begin our six-month descent into the winter solstice, where the sun stands still once again and we are left with the prospect of a retun to light, a return to longer days.

This day is a celebration of life, of sol, of all that the sun may give us in its infinite energy and light. It is a day to be grateful, where we peak with celebration on a day that affords us more light than any other day in the calendar.

It is a day to rejoice life.

On this day when the sun stands still, it is hard to imagine that such a feat can happen when so many other things seemingly swirl frantically all around me: cancer and other health issues with my mother and my sister, major changes at my school with colleagues I have worked with daily since 2003, relationships, friends…every direction in which I turn, nothing is still.

Yet, Sol finds it possible twice a year to stand still regardless of all that is occurring. It teaches us that, amidst chaos and uncertainty, we all have the capability and the right to slow things down, even stop the madness if but for a single moment, and earn the right to make a choice to turn things around. Change direction. Change the way we see and perceive the energy swirling around us.

This is a good time for solstice. May all of us seize such a moment and make it work for us; may all of us see that change is necessary and, therefore, can be embraced simply for what it is: a moment where the our lives stand still, the murky waters settle, and we are left with the brilliance of clarity and direction.

Simplify, simplify, simplify!
~henry david thoreau

18 June 2006

It is only the third day of summer vacation, but I already feel overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” piled high on my desk and around my chair. In fact, there is simply too much stuff in this room, and I know it is ridiculous and impossible to consider, but I literally feel as if I cannot breathe as well in this room. There is too much stuff, too much junk, and it clutters my thoughts, my air, my living.

But this room is just a metaphor for my life in general. It seems that, everywhere I go, there is just too much stuff around me, and the tough part to acknowledge is that it’s due in large part to choices I have made. These piles have not been thrust upon me; I have either chosen them to be in my life, or I have not refused their self-invitations to join me.

Why do any of us do this? I think it is a combination of two things:

1. wanting to live so fully that I do not let opportunities go by without seizing them, and that often breeds a lot of stuff: papers, bags, camera equipment, cd carrying cases, too many clothes, and
2. protecting myself from the possibilities of what may be from living a simple life; or, more boldly put: a life lived without piles, blankets, covers, walls, barriers. What does it mean to live a life simply, a life without covers?

My friends who have been around the sun a few more times than I tell me that they reached a point where the essentials in their lives came down to 12 books, 5 cds, 1 journal, 1 pen. Everything else, if taken away from them, would hardly be noticed, if missed at all.

Today, I will clear my desk, clean this room, so that I may breathe a little better, a little more simply, and provide room for perhaps clarity, if not outright possibility, for what may be in a simple, uncluttered life.

Try it, too. And I promise: we’ll all refrain from chuckling too loudly when we see who we really are…

A note to my readers: The Fine 99 is a new series of essays focusing on my beliefs of what is most important in life. After I am finished with this series, I’ll see what I’ve written to see if it’s worthy of a collection of essays to pitch as a book. I’ll let the angle, the threads and the themes emerge as they will without too much forethought. Otherwise, I’ll feel a little boxed in to write exclusively about this or that, in this way or that way…If in the end a collection of essays rises from these words, then I’ll take the next step in publishing them. If not, well then I’m sure the ride will serve some greater purpose that I need not mind myself with at this moment.

What is your fine 99?

A journalist always has an obligation to her audience to deliver the news truthfully. Even when elements of creative nonfiction are used to craft an article, it’s never a good idea to be misleading for dramatic effect, especially when the piece is about a random murder that happened just a few days ago.

Yet, the Sun finds no problem in breaking almost every rule in publishing such a piece in their Saturday morning edition. “He Was the First and Closest Target” is about the death of –no, that’s not it. It’s about the family suffering –uh-uh. Not that either. Let’s see….It’s about where the shooter lived, the fact that an ironing board in an unblinded window prompted a neighbor to speak up about issues of privacy, and that a .357 can fire off five shots.

Yeah. I think that’s right.

Maybe.

The writers of this piece (that’s right; it took two writers with two others contributing) open with a misleading headline, with no explanatory subhead following. I was drawn into this piece because I thought these were the killer’s words, and so I thought, well, looks like they scored an interview with the suspect, or, at the very least, captured a statement or confession that he’s made already.

No such truth there.

The headline quote is from the police spokesperson who, in a press conference, said that the shooting was completely random and the suspect was simply the “first and closest target.” We learn this in paragraph 22 of the story. In the Internet post of the story, this falls on page two.
Why mislead? The shooting is already relevant enough that tricks like this are not necessary to lure readers into the piece. We all go to movies, right? When we learned of this senseless killing, we all thought, even if briefly, that could have been me–or worse, that could be me the next time I go see a movie.

By giving us a misleading lead, you set us up for disappointment, and breed mistrust. It’s a cheap shot that offends in this piece; we are obviously sympathetic to the wife and her family for the tragedy that has changed their lives forever. The Sun alienates itself, and the writers of this piece make the paper look insensitive and cheap.

The article gets worse. For some reason, the writers meander on to a side story of the 1.6 million dollar home of the shooter, and the small details of wealthy neighbors being peeved that they took long to put up blinds (they could see the ironing board through the open window, for goodness sake; “it was very bothersome,” said one neighbor).

Only four paragraphs toward the end of the article are about the victim. The article ends with the wife describing how, at 1:30 a.m., she drove to the theater to see her husband’s car among several police cruisers. She discovered that her husband had been murdered when she approached one of the officers and said that the Chevy Malibu was her husband’s car.

The officer’s response, “You must be Mrs. Schrum,” ends the article.

Now, if we are going for dramatic effect, this is a great way to end a chapter of a book, whether it is fiction or creative nonfiction. You are driven to turn the page and read on. Of course, you can’t do that here. And besides, you feel sick to want to do that in the first place. You’ve been mislead by a headline quote, you’re scratching your head about the significance of blinds and ironing boards, and now you’re wanting to be entertained by a story that is much too fresh to be told in this dramatic and random fashion.

Bottom line: The bigger the subject, the less you use to convey your point.

And in this case, it’s best to know your point before you even begin. Otherwise, you end up writing (and in this case, unfortunately publishing) a piece that offends not only the family that has been struck by this tragedy, but your readers as well.