If I had a million dollars: a list

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

I’m a list person, always have been, probably always will be. I make lists for everything you can imagine (and probably a few things you can’t imagine) and consider list-making a completely legitimate past-time. One of my very favorite day dreams is coming up with a list of what I would do or buy with the following sums of money: $100, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, and $1,000,000.

Now, one of the rules of this day dream is that one cannot put these monies towards something boring and sensible like “my IRA” or “my future child’s future college tuition.” I realize that may be super exciting for some people, but it makes this game an exercise in Who Can Act Like The More Responsible Adult, and that’s just no fun whatsoever. My day dream, my rules.

$100:

Splurge on all new underwear – new undies is one of life’s greatest pleasures, I think, and I do not treat myself nearly often enough.

$1,000:

I am dreaming about a new mattress, I don’t even know if you can buy a really great one for $1,000, but I hope so. I want one that basically feels like you are sleeping on a cloud, or on a pile of feathers from angel’s wings. My back is about 30 years more decrepit than the rest of my body (thank you, car accident), and a mattress to counteract these pains on a nightly basis would be freaking amazing. Blue Eyes demanded new, high threat-count sheets a few weeks ago, and they have been totally dreamy. Adding a new mattress to that? I’m counting sheep already!

$10,000:

Wouldn’t it be lovely to take this kind of money and go on some kind of extended around-the-world trip? I mean, you could also blow it in a week in New York or London if you stayed in fancy hotels and ate at all the amazing restaurants and went to shows and such. But I’m thinking of something a lot more low key with the large expenses being airplane tickets and living on a minimal amount per day. Of course, I’d probably need about 3 months of leave from my job, but that obstacle is not the point of this day dream. I’d start in China and move through Nepal, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. If there was still money I’d head to Patagonia and work my way up South America with stops in Peru and an extended wander around the Caribbean. (Alternately, this would be just as amazing wandering around Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for 3 months, but that isn’t my first pick.)

$100,000:

This number breaks down into a couple of line items:

I would use this as tuition money for a Master’s degree. Lately I am leaning towards an advanced degree in Project Management because I feel it is marketable in a wide range of disciplines, yet also completely applicable to where I am right now. Now, to find the actual program.
I would buy Blue Eyes a Harley Davidson, and buy myself a fantastic set of leathers to ride with him (who knows, maybe I’d also go for my own motorcycle?).
New bedroom furniture; what we have is a mishmash of items that are either thrifted, handed down, or 15-year old IKEA-quality furniture. It’s time. (Yes, this could have been included in the $1,000 or $10,000 category, but, ultimately, I’d rather have a mattress and 3 months wandering the world instead of a new dresser, so that’s why it’s listed here.)
Probably also a fantastic international trip to somewhere amazing, with a few luxury things thrown in. I’m thinking Paris or Rome or Spain or something where living is kind of expensive and good living is even more. Sign me up!

$1,000,000:

A house. Absolutely, and with no question, a house. (Technically I could put a hefty down payment on a house with the $100,000 sum, but it’s my list and I’ll organize it as I want to.) I love where we live right now, I’ve been in this apartment for 7.5 years and in the same neighborhood for another 5. But I am ready for a garage, for a garden, my own washer and dryer, and walls that I can paint. I would LOVE to be rid of my yellow tile + minty aqua tub combination; I fantasize about white subway tile and in more than one tiny bathroom. Houses in my neighborhood are crazy-expensive, even for the lackluster fixer uppers and the ones that are nearly condemned. There are a few other neighborhoods in my current city that I would consider living, but the real estate there is nearly as expensive. I mean, Blue Eyes and I could easily find something we loved for considerably less than a million dollars, but the inevitable renovation and furnishings (see: 15-year old IKEA-quality furniture, above), and that sum suddenly seems much, much smaller. Components of a dream house for me would be a dedicated library room, and a living room large enough for a grand piano. And then also, a grand piano. (See how that $1,000,000 shrinks when you add a Steinway into the mix?)

With the leftovers, I’d like to buy some land in Montana, somewhere in the mountains. Maybe near Bozeman? Or perhaps the Bitterroot Valley? I’ve only been there once, but it is one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever seen. Those soaring snow-capped rocky mountains always will feel like home, even if they aren’t the mountains that guarded my own childhood (which, for the record, also feel like home, but a good-sized plot of land (i.e. more than an acre) at their base is not in the $1,000,000 budget. Seriously. It’s insane.)

So, how about you? How would you spend such sums? And please, even if you would probably sock it away in a retirement account, or pay down your mortgage….give me something FUN to chew on, mmmkay?

For Daniel

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

In the first half of 2012 I went to 6 funerals: Blue Eyes’ grandmother, a co-worker who lost his battle with cancer, one of Blue Eyes’ best friends and his young son, a dear neighbor from my hometown, and my grandfather. It was a rough six months, oy.

In 2013 I only attended one funeral, a young man just about to graduate from college whom I had met several years earlier. More than perhaps any other funeral, my own grandparents and relatives included, his has stuck with me; Daniel’s funeral was a year ago, but I cannot stop thinking about it, or him. I met Daniel when he was 16, a Junior at the high school where I volunteer in the theater department; he was trying to wrap his head around a difficult Shakespeare monologue, rehearsing to perform at a national competition. He was soft-spoken, smart, determined, and willing to try just about any suggestion to better portray Richard III, the hunchback villain. He was brilliant. Over the next 2 years I coached him on a few different pieces and when he went to college I made a point to go and see the plays in which he performed. His command of language and emotion and his dedication to his art was impressive when he was a teenager, as he learned more about acting it was hard to pay attention to anyone else on stage; that kid was a natural powerhouse.

Daniel was a hipster before it was hip or trendy—he wore skinny colored jeans and black dreadlocks halfway down his back. He had square glasses with dark frames, wrote poetry and played the guitar, and did not care what anyone else thought of him. He rode his skateboard everywhere and I often saw him around my neighborhood which is adjacent to his University. I always honked, and he always waved (usually followed up by a Facebook message thanking me for saying hello). Despite a somewhat rough-looking exterior, Daniel was the kindest, most humble kid I think I’ve ever met. He never put himself above others, I never heard him mock or make fun of a fellow student, and he would do anything to help make a play or competition piece better for everyone involved. Man, that kid was a sweetheart.

I’m still not sure how he died, although because it wasn’t ever announced publicly I imagine it was some kind of drug overdose, either intentional or accidental. He died halfway through his last semester at the university, just weeks before his graduation ceremony.

Daniel’s funeral was unlike any I have ever attended, and I’ve been to probably 25 or 30 in my lifetime. The room was packed with people from all walks of life, the service and remarks were in English and Spanish with translation of both languages. There were beautiful stories, hilarious stories, poems and songs and tributes from family back in Colombia and his fellow University cohort. Daniel was spiritual but not religious, his family acknowledged his position while still maintaining their own hopes to see him in an afterlife. His brothers and cousins sang “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, his friends quoted huge sections of Shakespeare’s Richard III and Henry V. His aunt read a few stanzas from a Shakespearean sonnet and the final tribute was a Beatles song, sung by anyone in the audience who wished to participate.

It seemed to me a true celebration of a passionate life cut short, as well as a time for grief and mourning of a son, grandson, nephew, brother, and friend. Even though Daniel and I weren’t terribly close, I feel like I will always carry a small piece of him in my heart. And I will always remember the Shakespeare-loving teen with dreadlocks who lived life according to his own rules.

RIP, Daniel.

Mono Lake, California

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

Mono Lake is in Northern California, just east of Yosemite National Park. Last summer, a group of friends made an epic trip to Yosemite (which, I should probably get around to writing about) and stopped at Mono Lake to stretch our legs.

Mark Twain described Mono Lake as “lifeless, treeless, hideous desert… the loneliest place on earth.” (Roughing It, 1872.) However, I am a desert girl, I love the wide, open spaces and geological anomalies are something of a pet favorite of mine. Cartwheeling across the flattest place on earth? Done. SCUBA diving in a dormant volcano? Done. Hunting for a half-forgotten lava tube, and then wandering through it in the pitch black? Done. Jumping off a monolithic stone arch? Yep. (Of course, with proper safety precautions, like harness and rope and such.) I just cannot get enough of the rocky, desolate places of the earth; I think they are inspiring, beautiful, and force you to reconsider the things you thought you knew.

Mono Lake is incredibly salty, there is no outlet for water except for evaporation, and over the thousands and millions of years this process has created a lake with such a high saline concentrate most plants and animals cannot live in or near it. However, there are these amazing stalagmite formations of tufa that have literally grown out of the lake, kind of like coral reefs, that are bleached white in the sun and form this very other-wordly landscape. Goodness, it was fascinating.

Click on any photo to enlarge.

love that this lake is surrounded by mountains, it reminded me of home.

Isn’t that just crazy-awesome?

I was completely obsessed with how enormous these formations were. I’m sure they’ve been there for millions of years to grow to their current height, but still, it was so impressive to me!

Love.

The blue of the sky and the lake, the purpley gray of the mountains, and the gray and white of the tufa columns is just such a lovely color palette. #pretentiousalert

See the rest of the Flickr set here.

Ten Things I Love, and Why

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

In no particular order, some things that make me happy.

1. Taking myself on long walks around my neighborhood with a camera slung over my shoulder. I love finding little vignettes that make me smile, or are interesting combination of colors, texture, or light. (It is super pretentious to use the word vignette? Say, more pretentious than looking up a synonym for vignette so people on the internet don’t wonder that I’m pretentious?!)

2. Peppermint tea, slightly sweetened, no cream or milk. This is particularly wonderful at home with cozy slippers or in a sun-filled spot at a cafe with deep leather chairs and a good book.

3. Snuggling into Blue Eyes’ shoulder and listening to the sound of his heart. His strong arms, smell, and kind heart will forever be my safe place.

4. Silence.

5. Real roses, as in, ones from your grandmother’s garden. While I was growing up we had an enormous rose garden along the entire east wall of our house, 2 or 3 bushes deep and something like 30 feet long. In the summer my Mom would trim 100 blooms off those bushes every few days. Real roses have this incredible sweet scent, and they are broader than they are tall with slightly irregular petals that are the softest, silkiest things in the world. Real roses are wild and warm and invoke memories of running barefoot in the dewy grass. I realize I am kind of ruined for regular (or even high-end) florist roses; to me they feel, smell, and look like plastic.

6. Rows and rows and rows of books. I think the library scene from Beauty and the Beast is forever imprinted on my brain. My dream house will have a 2-story library with a spiral staircase and an enormous fireplace. I know the chic thing nowadays is to have an e-reader and keep thousands of books on a slim device that fits into your purse. That just is not my style. I love a printed book, the weight, the smell, the feel. I love shelves and shelves of them in different colors and sizes with each title beckoning me to “pick me! pick me!”

7. Painting. I am not good at it yet, but I really enjoy mixing oil paints to create bright, clear colors, and then seeing how accurately I can recreate the picture in my head. I have a dear friend who is a legit artist–galleries and shows and hundreds of sold paintings–and she has been incredibly kind and encouraging. She goes so far in her encouragement that she introduces me to her friends as “Harriet, who is also an artist.” This, of course, makes me feel hopelessly inadequate and also incredibly, deliriously hopeful.

8. I am blessed with some of the most lovely friends on the planet, I feel as I get older I am finding more and more women with whom I deeply connect and appreciate. I’m not sure what actions on my part deserve such luck and such incredible friendships, but I am so grateful for this support-network of ladies who encourage me, inspire me, listen to me, laugh with me, cry with me. I’ve always heard you get fewer and fewer friends as you get older, and I have found this absolutely not to be the case. I have more important and fulfilling friendships now than I have had at any other time in my life.

9. This may sound off, but I love being busy. Which does absolutely not mean I love not having time for the things I value, I am getting better and better at segmenting my time to include the things that are important to me. I mean, I love having a lengthy-but-doable list of projects at work. I love having a constantly evolving to-do list at home. I love the routine that comes from having a full schedule, but one that has blocks of time for relaxing and friends and detoxification built in. I would so much rather be busy than any other alternative.

10. Seeing people in love. Not PDA-obsessed teenagers making out at the mall, but people with a shared history together of hurts and joy, fear and triumph, failure and success. I love seeing those people still choose each other, still light up when they see each other, still show affection towards each other and exude a happy contentment just because they are together. It chokes me up every time.

What do you love? What makes you happy? What are the things in your life you crave?

On Writing

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

For most of 2013 I was unable to write. Part of my dilemma was circumstantial, but most of it was a gigantic case of writer’s block. I felt crippled, unable to form words or sentences that had any meaning. It has been terrible.

I tried a half-dozen different ways to unblock myself, but still, my cursor would blink on an empty screen. It was like I was in a contest with that damn cursor, a contest I had no hope of winning.

And then, just a few days ago, I found a revolutionary-to-me solution. A notebook. Not a pretty notebook, not one that was bound in leather, or with gold gilt on the pages. Just a regular, $0.99 cent spiral-bound single-subject notebook and a black, Bic pen. Nothing fancy, nothing special. Suddenly, the pressure is gone. I can write pages and pages! Sure, my hand gets crampy and my writing is mostly illegible, but I’m okay with that. I can read it well enough to copy it onto my laptop if it’s something I want to share. And if it’s not something I want to share, I’m not “messing up” a page in a beautiful notebook with scribbles or drivel, nor do I feel like I need to remove a less-than-perfect page from a spiral notebook (as, admittedly, I have done in many a pretty one).

I didn’t realize this, but I must have felt that a beautiful notebook or journal only deserved beautiful, meaningful, long-lasting writing in it. And that, my friends, is crippling. To feel that everything you produce must be perfect on the first attempt, or at least, only need minor edits. Gaah, it’s ludicrous! How could I be so….so stupid!? So shackled!? So tied to this supposition that anything less than perfect was not worth attempting?

As I thought about this (while writing this post, long-hand, on page 17 of my started-yesterday-but-filling-up-nicely notebook) it occurred to me that, just maybe, my scribbly notebooks may be worth more than a hardcover published work. The thought processes, the frustrations, the attempts, the marginalia…there is intrinsic value in that type of writing. And I knew it, but didn’t think it applied to me. Sigh. Sometimes, I really surprise myself at my own obtuseness.

I have missed writing.

Feisty Harriet

"i" before "e" except when I'm feisty.

Monthly Archives: April 2014