Life is short

Life is short. Do what you love. Don't get caught up in things. Value people, not material objects. Love deeply, love fully, have no regrets.
--Derek Miller

Louis C.K., you are awesome.

Inspiration Folder

Hello lovelies!

Do you use Evernote?  It is my latest obsession!  I use it like I would a giant virtual moleskine notebook. You can add nearly anything and then access it anywhere-- even on your phone. It's my current favorite productivity hack (everything is searchable! no more keeping 18 tabs open so I don't forget articles I want to read! Chrome extension to add pictures/articles/urls with 2 keystrokes!) and my new catchall box.

Here's a few things I clipped into my inspiration folder today:

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.

-- Barbara Kingsolver

A truck carrying ink-cartridges smashed into a bridge, and the result? Rainbows!

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And the World Food Programme's Josette Sheeran's Ted Talk on ending hunger (now).

What made you perk up your ears today?

As an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky...

I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.

--Lemony Snicket

Let's Stay in Touch!

After graduation, my friends scattered to the winds. So when I saw this article on 10 Ways to Stay in Touch with Your Long-Distance BFFs, I was understandably stoked.  Shortly thereafter, I was frankly disappointed!

"Write on her Facebook wall/Twitter page"?  "Leave a voicemail"?  "Remember her birthday"?  Really? We're assuming that we're actually friends with this person, right?  Okay, sure. You do need to do these things to stay friends from afar.  But let's get more creative!

Here's my list of (Fun) Ways to Stay in Touch with Far-flung Friends:

Say it with a song.
Sure, you can spam your favorite gal's wall with enough "I miss yous" to keep the bonds of friendship alive.  But why not go Broadway musical on her? Record a video of you singing My Heart Will Go On ("far across the distance and spaces betweeeeeen us...")/500 Miles/her favorite jam and post that on her Facebook/Twitter. Much better.

Send a care package!
I'm shocked this one didn't make the original list.  I like to fill up a box with Lisa Frank stickers (available on Etsy if you aren't still hoarding your 4th grade collection), mix cds, used books, nail polish, baked goods, and whatever other bits and baubles catch my eye.

Theme it up.  Only purple items?  4th of July theme (complete with sparklers!) for a patriotic pal? Stress relief in a box with homemade scrub, bubble bath and scented candles? The possibilities are endless. Never forget the most important part of any care package-- a handwritten note!

Set up a private blog.  
Our group of ladies from college share a password-protected blog.  It's excellent for sharing life updates and hilarious links en masse.  And that cutie you kissed at the bar last night?  Thank goodness for a safe space to spill all the juicy details with the girls.

Long distance book club.
Self-explanatory?  Pick a book, read it, talk about it.

Sisterhood of the Traveling...
I don't have any mystical every-body-type-fitting pants.  Do you?

Never fear.  There's plenty of other non-magical items at our disposal.  I'm a fan of passing around a funny little figurine (a la Amelie's gnome).  Friend A takes a picture of your inanimate comrade in an interesting place, pastes the photo into an album, and mails both to Friend B. B to C; C to D; D to A.You get the idea. The stranger/more clever the settings, the better the game.

Host virtual movie dates.
Set up a Skype conference call.  Put on your favorite movie (or t.v. show or whatever) and watch together.  All the commentary and giggles you love through the miracle of video chat.  

And dance parties.
Two options. Numero Uno: video chat in on a real-time dance-off. Easy. Or, two: pick a song, everyone makes a video of getting down with her bad self, share.  Hilarious either way.

Establish a ritual.
Email each other a song a day.  A favorite quote each Monday morning.  Every April 15th (or October 4th or January 26th) is Besties Day-- your time to get together and finally hang out in person (My dad and his best friends have met up at the Indy 500 every Memorial Day for at least 15 years. An awesome tradition!).  Whatever suits your relationship and tastes.  But make something regular and worth looking forward to.

Twin day!
Remember how cool it was in elementary school when you and your girl wore matching outfits?  Megan and I always topped off our Limited Too ensembles with a chic friendship necklace. It was a metal cartoon cow on a black cord. We swore to never take them off. Not even in the shower. We were awesome.

Bring back the awesome!  Plan a twin day, chose your outfits, and share some snapshots.  And, since your friend is now your long distance friend-- no awkward moments!  Twin Day is your little secret.

What about you guys?  How do you keep it close across the miles?

The Laughing Heart

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The Best Place to Write

It is no secret that the best place to write, in my opinion, is a café; you don’t have to make your own coffee, you don’t feel that you are in solitary confinement while you work and when inspiration fails, you can take a walk to the next café while your batteries re-charge. In my opinion, the best writing café is just crowded enough so that you blend in, but not so crowded that you end up sharing a table with somebody who tries to read chapter twenty upside down, has staff who don’t glower at you if you sit there too long (though these days I can afford to keep ordering coffees even if I don’t drink them, so that’s less of a problem) and doesn’t play very loud music, which is the only noise that disturbs me when I’m writing.— J.K. Rowling

Oh, I so agree! I'm always working on a dozen projects and appear to be developing a chai addiction from all the time spent in my closest coffee shop. Worth it for the ten-fold productivity increase.

Authenticity

Standard clichés for early adulthood dictate that currently I am in a stage of “finding myself.”

Every time I hear this phrase, I can’t help but think of Claire Danes’ character, Angela, on that delightfully angsty 90s classic-- My So-Called Life:

People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even. But every so often I'll have, like, a moment, where just being myself in my life right where I am is, like, enough.

Way to cut to the core, Angela. (By the way, that’s 5 “likes” in 2 sentences. Well played.)

I’ve loved this bit for ages. Being told that I would eventually “find myself” in some whole and immutable state felt (and still feels) completely absurd. Like reducing my (and your and everyone else’s) complexity to that of a household appliance. Gross.

But, you know what? I’m more or less coming around to the idea. (it wouldn’t be a cliché if it didn’t have some truth, right?) Though, instead of finding myself, I like to think of it as finding authenticity.

In one form or another, “myself” has been here all along. It (I) am constantly evolving and changing and doing lots of organic non-toastery things. There’s no endpoint. I will keep growing.

(And I think that’s what Angela is getting at here. The phrase is so annoying because it seems to make two rather obnoxious assumptions. First, that whoever we might be at the current moment is not good enough or true enough; second, that someday we’ll arrive at the station and never have to question who we are ever again. No way. No thanks. To both.)

So, it’s not a matter of finding “me” as though it’s some separate and exterior entity. Rather, the task is to take the essence, the person that exists under all the security blankets, and let that be what the world sees. When I feel certain that the choices I make, the friends I keep, and the words I say are all reflections of the person I am and the person I want to be—well, then I feel authentic. I feel something whole and true that fits that self-discovery narrative. I don’t have to find me, but a way to share myself with others honestly and openly.

In practice? It means refusing to apologize for my passions, my beliefs, and my strengths. For what makes me smile and what makes me cry. Acknowledging that I have weaknesses and addressing them. Asking for help and taking it graciously. No compromising authenticity for being liked (it’s easy for me to pretend that I left this habit in middle school, but sadly not always true).

And when I accomplish these things (again, no end point. It’s a moment-by-moment and day-by-day achievement), I feel positively electric. No doubt that I can set the world on fire.

I realize I’ve basically swapped “find yourself” with “be yourself.” What’s the use in exchanging one hackneyed old phrase with another? But really, it’s about the path between the two. In fact, the never-ending cycle between them. Take stock, share it (never hide from it), and then take stock again. The process breeds authenticity and authenticity cultivates joy. And joy is a very very good thing.

Move, Eat, Learn

Check out these three incredible travel videos.  Scheming next world adventure begins... now.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.