Friend: Do you ever edit your emails?
Me: No – I type exactly as I’m thinking it & then just hit send. Why?
Friend: Sometimes editing isn’t so bad. I mean, the good part is it really feels like you’re talking to me, the bad part is you write stuff like, “and the challenging part of that is wait.. my dog is barfing and …whoah. wait. no. he’s good. ok so the challenging part… omg seriously dog?”
On NPR today I heard the story about a “John Doe” who was walking around Seattle and couldn’t remember his identity but could remember bits of his very fascinating life. The Seattle Times ran a story on him today as 12:03AM and by 5:30AM someone in China had written to say they knew who the man was – Edward Lighthart.
Mr. Lighthart has lived around the world, speaks three languages, was married and ran businesses so my first reaction upon hearing him identified was “won’t his friends and family be so happy to have found him?”
Yet, during the NPR interview with the Seattle Times writer, I learned that maybe that’s an old fashioned thought. For the end of the interview concluded with the writer saying, “Somewhere there is an apartment and a computer waiting for Mr. Lighthart.”
A computer? Really?
It saddened me greatly to hear this comment but then I thought, it’s probably true. Life is now so often disconnected from real human contact; we think we’re more connected but really, we’re just more plugged in. We can hide behind text messages, emails, twitters and updates which is supposed to mean we care but really, it doesn’t. It doesn’t make us more responsible to our neighbours, our friends, our family. It allows us to identify missing people quickly but not to act quickly in helping them out.
It was strange to me that this story, that I heard 12 hours after his identity was revealed, was told with him having no papers, ID, friends or family coming to claim him or help him. All he had was an apartment and a computer somewhere, we think.
This morning I was walking my dog and just a few feet in front of me was a little blond girl, maybe four or five, who was walking very slowly. And in between walking very slowly she’d stop at every single flower, lean in, inhale and then walk to the next. In Santa Monica, CA, this could take awhile as there are flowers and tended gardens everywhere.
And apparently it was as the father, who obviously trying to get somewhere, was further ahead of her pushing her baby brother in a stroller, called out to her, “Honey, you don’t have to smell every flower”
To which she replied in all earnestness, “Oh, but Daddy, I do!”
At this point, the father sighed that sigh of ‘I tried’ and just waited at the corner while he daughter greeted and smelled every flower in that block. And since I was walking my dog who was the same size as her and excited by her little bouncy movements, I stopped moving and just stood with Jack as we watched her do what she needed to do.
And somehow, even though all the grown ups had to get somewhere, even though this would probably make us late, and it was something we maybe didn’t comprehend, it ended up being one of the best walks ever as I think we all saw new things. And I know I learned something: that yellow flower #4 on the left is called “Rebecca”.
I just found out that this site doesn’t work on a PC; I’ll work on fixing it.
I had a very long, very real dream that involved living in Malibu, me running in running shoes, sweatpants, t-shir, baseball cap and running into a plethora of celebrities as I make my way home. I know, how can that be realistic? Me, in sweatpants and a baseball cap running?
The strange thing about the celebrities were that they were mostly TV actors – I do not have a TV, I have never had a TV and I have never worked on TV. So how Brad Garret got into my dream, I’ll never know (mind you he was just running down the hill with his dogs on his cell phone. We didn’t really chat).
But before I was to cross the PHC highway to go up the hill to my place, my name was called. I whirl around and there is Suzanne Somers with her 3 young children and her mother, Connie Stevens.
“Why Miss Alex! Come and say hi!”
“Hi Miss Somers what a nice surprise to see you out here.”
We hug. She’s bundled up because it’s winter and we’re on a rocky beach. So I fix her scarf and she hands me her cup of hot milk. We talk real estate. I point to the direction I’m in and how I love it here. How I felt so judged in Kirkland but out here was a breath of fresh air.
“I don’t know how you lasted so long!”
Then she introduces me to her mother and I say we met last weekend at the picnic. The one Marcia Cross hosted (in fairness, I do see her around town all the time and her hair dresser is a good friend). Oh right, says Connie, all cute in pigtails.
As we’re talking we see a couple of celebrities whiz by in the back of a pick up. We say how it’s changing here and how they’re building mansions into the rock cliff. But that for the next few years it should stay the same and that’s good for now.
I then wake up into reality.
I do my morning routine, then I check my email and there’s an email from a place I’ve never visitied online or on TV – HSN.com.
Coincidence? I think not.
Please go out there and do. Live. Don’t be the same as yesterday. Don’t live vicariously online. Don’t use language that has no meaning or talk ideas you don’t really live. Don’t hide. Don’t copy others or live their ideas or life. Don’t fear doing your thing. Don’t fear doing. Instead of reading a decorating magazine, paint that room. Instead of thinking of baking, do up a cake. Run, walk, bike. Put that self help book down and pick up yourself.
Let go of the snark, your worries, your anger and fear and give into possibility, action, joy and life. Do. Do some more. Stop thinking about you. Stop blogging about just you and your kid and your pet. There’s a world out there to connect to, really connect to. Being of use is more important than being popular. Think about the lady down the street, the person at the drive through, the man fallen in the street, about politics, the environment, healthcare, another country and then do something about it. Never stop at thinking.
Dream big, work harder. Have lots of fun, lift a finger, do something for someone else. Cheer your friends on. Cheer yourself up. Celebrate as much as possible. Enjoy everything. Right now. It’s OK to want more and do more but be present with where you are or who you are with. Don’t rush the situation – even if it’s bad. Move on when you can. Don’t settle. Try everything you can and get over everything holding you back.
Go outside. Go outside yourself. Make a difference, make some change. Don’t complain about someone unless you’re talking to that someone. Don’t complain about a situation you’re not willing to make better. They don’t have it better and you don’t have it worse. Don’t make excuses. You’ll never see possibility if you do. And you’re smart and worth more than settling for a life of complaining and limitation.
Hope. Hope more. Give someone else hope. Get healthy and contribute to a healthy environment. Think about everything you do, you buy, you say. Only be lazy on Sunday and even then, be conscious. Rest is useful, giving up is not.
Play. Remember what it’s like to be seven. Remember to listen to a seven year old because you just have more words and life experience, not necessarily more wisdom. Have more questions than answers and don’t put everything into words. Sometimes just feel things and be. Be quiet more often, listen harder, talk exactly as you mean to.
Strive for your best and not what you think someone elses’ best is. Follow through. Don’t let others’ down. Don’t let yourself down. You are better than your circumstances. Ask for what you’re worth. Make magic happen don’t wish for it. Don’t envy others’ lives, envy yours. Live it fully. Teach by example how to live well, how to be treated, how to be kind, how to be alive.
Do. I can’t stress that one enough. Take action on your life. Make the change. No more sulking, waiting, thinking, reading, talking about. It’s time. You’re ready.
In March 2008 I re-discovered a forgotten list of 30 things I had set out to do in my 30th year. I was happy to discover that I had done most of the things and became ambitious to do the ones that had gone undone.
Thinking more I thought, if I gave myself more time, what would I do? How many things have I always wanted to see, experience, do or feel? And the 101 Things To Do Before I Die list was born.
Here it is (if it’s struck-through it means I did it!):
I can imagine this dilapidated 17 century sitting room with with painted walls, roaring fire, carpet on hardwood floors and a table with tea to welcome someone in after the cold. There’s something, to me, so beautiful about the way this room is, even in it’s broke down, overgrown, unlivable condition. It’s more beautiful that after viewing this, I returned to my lovely room at the Hayfield Manor Inn where I had tea delivered each evening whilst working at my computer – not having to worry about cleaning up after myself and having cable television (a treat!).
This is easy to do on a dreamy trip and in someone else’s place. It’s a totally different story when I get an emergency call telling me that, thanks to several severe storms, my flat has been destroyed by water and wind damage and it’s currently unlivable and that I have to stay in a hotel instead of my home.
Unexpectedly, I had to go home to see the damage only to realise that I really couldn’t stay in my place; the roof, walkway, walls had massive water damage and instability issues. So for the past week I have been staying in a hotel by my home, trying to get access inside when I’m allowed (which hasn’t been very much) plus trying to figure out how to pack up/move what I’ve got and where to go. It’s been extraordinarily frustrating because in the midst of all of this, life is still going on at full force (including work, going back to Europe, arranging things back in Santa Monica, CA, dealing with the pets, dealing with food allergies (gluten) and not having a kitchen in which to safely eat).
Looking at damaged buildings and then retreating to my hotel was charming in Ireland but has had me, at times, a flailing-limbed mess back home. I really love being settled – even if it’s in a temporary home or hotel and all this was making me feel anything but. Not knowing where I was going to be each day in reality instead of a trip was frustrating and overwhelming. Trying to figure out how to get to my stuff, what to do with the pets, where do I go, how do I get back to work etc. seemed like a never-ending pile of problems. I had to stop work on my home articles, on certain projects and reading certain sites on the internet because I just felt like I couldn’t do what I wanted to do thanks to all of this. I felt stuck as it was too much and I couldn’t see anything good – even though I was looking at damaged state during the day and retreating to a luxury hotel each night – basically I was doing the same thing in Carmel that I was doing in Ireland.
But after a few days of wallowing I had had enough and wasn’t getting anywhere. I realised that this situation – like all situations – is about attitude. I can’t change what happened so I have to change the way I look at it. Focusing on all the problems, frustrations and “why me” left me with problems, frustrations and a pity party for one. So I recounted the wise words of Maria von Trap (as played by Julie Andrews), “You cry a little, then the sun comes out.”
And after all the storms, the sun had to come out – literally or figuratively. I made up my mind to just look at my current situation differently – just as I’d done only a few days before in Ireland. The situation is so not ideal but the upswing? I knew that living here would be temporary, anyway and now there is less packing. Staying in a local hotel allowed me to finally catch Project Runway (since I don’t have a TV at home) and LOST. And now I’m free to move about the world without having to worry about being tied down to a flat for now. And moving back to Santa Monica will be easier.
So although I won’t be taking photos of the damage as “art,” I will be looking at all of this differently. It’s the only way I keep moving forward because I have challenges too. It’s just that my dreams are so much bigger and I’d rather be exhausted by them than the (temporary) problems.
Today I turn 34 which I’m so very glad for as I must confess 33 was, for lack of a better term, ass. But tonight I’m at an estate built in the 1600’s as a summer residence in a beautiful part of Ireland. I’ve had champagne and gluten free cake with two sets of flowers in my hotel apartment. So far, 34 is promising.
The photo is blurry, I know, but I think it just captures how I’ve been lately – always in motion. People always ask how I do so much and wonder if it’s a sugar daddy or magic pill. The truth is it’s just a love of life and lots of doing because I believe life is made up of choice, not circumstance and I choose to do anything and everything I can think of.
There are so many things I want to do, places I want to see, people I want to know that I am always busy either trying to figure out how to do things or doing them. Which often makes for some blurry times but I kind of like it that way. I couldn’t be happy just thinking of ideas and wondering how they’d turn out. I wouldn’t be happy feeling like I wasn’t able to do something because of something else. By choosing not to focus on circumstance or what others say is possible, my life and all that I do is possible.
And it leaves me with this wonderful blurry thing called life.
Summer of 1991 from alex beauchamp on Vimeo.
Almost every day I see the same gentleman (who is in his 80’s) walk very slowly down the sidewalk. Until he takes notice of me (or any other young woman around) he is supported by his daughter (who is in her 60’s). But as soon as he sees me he shoo’s her away, stands a little straighter and walks on his own trying to be proud and nonchalant. He always says hi to Jack and I and then once we’re passed and I’m out of sight, he returns to his daughter’s side. Sometimes I’ll hear her say as though she’s an embarrassed 16 year old, “Oh Dad, really” when he lets go.
In the video above, I was seventeen years old and now the video is seventeen years old. I can remember every detail of those days – the heat, the way the grass felt, the butterflies in my tummy over crushing, the weight of the trunk on our heads, the beach, her laughter, putting on lipstick for the first time and eating McDonald’s French Fries.
Recently I showed this video to my mum who giggled through the whole thing whilst saying over and over, “you haven’t changed. Listen to how you giggle, look at those movements and that cheek! So much the same!” When we went through her photos at the same age, I could say the same things about her.
And when we look at the seventeen year old girls we were, we don’t see any non-physical differences between the (almost) thirty-four year old woman I’ve become and the (almost) sixty-four year old woman she’s become. Despite there being all those years between us and our younger selves, there’s actually none at all. We have the same heart, the same mannerisms, the same ideals, the same sense of fun, the same of love of life. We’re just young girls who dream big, hope for the best but are just a little older and a little bit physically changed.
A man in his 90’s once said to me, “I’m just a 22 year old guy caught up in this old man’s body. I’m not so wise and put together as everyone assumes I am just because I’m old. I’m not stuffy or boring. I’m fun, alive with dreams, too and I still want to chase the girls. I don’t know how to be in this body. I just know how to be 22. And I miss it.”
I think of that every time I meet someone in that age range – that they’re just young people in an older body but who we are is who we are. This has given me happiness in the past little while for I thought I was getting further away from myself when, like Dorothy, I was there all along. I just, for awhile, became someone else I didn’t recognise. Luckily, I do now.