Month: December 2009

neighbors

My Year of Hopefulness – I’ve Got It Easy

Christa Avampato

As I trudged out of my apartment and through the streets to the M60 bus, I was silently cursing the incompatibility of snow banks and rolling luggage. I was hopping over the snow banks still stacked high on the sidewalks of my neighborhood, my rolling luggage clumsily in tow. In 5 blocks, I reached the bus stop, and was glad I would shortly be on my way toLaGuardia airport, albeit with a slightly sore lower back.

As I was lamenting my difficult walk, across the street came a man in a manual wheelchair, young and entirely unfazed by the slushy snow that was much harder for him to navigate than it was for me. I felt like such a whiny, mealy-mouthed jerk. Oh poor me! I have nice luggage with wheels to load up on a bus that will take me to a plane that will take me to warm, sunny Florida where I will spend the holiday with my fabulous, adorable, loving family. Oh the tragedy! However will I make it?

Sometimes terrible things happen to me, and yet when life gets me down I remember my mother’s constant phrase during my childhood, “there is always someone in the world worse off than you.” Her point was that I should stop whining about whatever was bothering me, and she was right. Whining never got anyone very far in this world. In the midst of tough circumstances, perspective is difficult to come by. When I pick my head up a bit from my own difficulties, I find other people who are getting by in life with far few blessings than I have. I’m grateful for the reminders of how truly lucky I am.

gratitude, happiness, New York City, weather

My Year of Hopefulness – The Whisper of Snow

Christa Avampato

And the snow fell and fell and fell. Some people will hunker down during a snow storm, watch a movie, play a board game, read. And some of us will run out into that snow and feel proud that they didn’t let the weather get them down. The people in this latter group are insane, and I’m one of them. I made my way down to 36th Street for dinner with my friend, Monika, last night and then got across town in record time (underground) to my friend, Cindy’s, holiday party.

Cindy’s parties are always an interesting mix of guests, and I am guaranteed to meet someone (or 2 or 3 someones) new every time. With the company of Anderson Cooper’s lead cameraman to a talented animator to one of the head stylists at Bumble & Bumble, there is never a shortage of cool stories, laughter, and delicious cocktails and food. I like to bring someone along every time to further liven up the mix. This time I brought my good pal, Jeff, who is always very outgoing and loves meeting new people as much as I do. After a good number of hours of merriment, I decided to head back out into the snow and get home.

I stepped outside into a world of sparkly white. The snow was breath-taking. Maybe the first snow fall always has a magical quality to it, though last night’s snow seemed to be something special. I never saw it glisten that way (and no, it wasn’t the candy cane eggnog I had at Cindy’s!) It felt like I was in a movie, as if a painter had taken a brush to my life and made everything around me glow.

So how would I get home in this foot of snow? At that time of night the subway is slow and I would have needed 2 transfers to get home anyway (getting across town in New York is rarely easy!) Cabs were getting stuck and spinning out everywhere I looked. Buses were no where to be found. My mom said to me that when she lived in New York, her best mode of transportation was a good pair of shoes. I had two inches heeled boots, and still I thought of her quote and didn’t think twice about making the hike on-foot. On a nice day, it would be a good, relaxing walk. In the snow at night, it would require a little more willpower and caution. I was up for it.

I skipped over and through the snowbanks, wound my way along the 79th Street passage through Central Park, and the whole time thought about how beautiful this city is. It was so quiet that I could actually hear the snow falling. The sky had a pink tint to it. The cold wind had died down. I felt a huge wave of gladness.

It was my next to last night in New York for 2009 since I’ll be leaving for the holidays in Florida on Monday. This snowstorm was a little gift for me, and I could swear I heard the world whispering, “Yes, you made it. You can file away 2009 as a year of experiences that opened your life to new possibilities, a year when so much fell away so that you could find new ways forward. This year, in a time of great loss, you received the opportunity to re-imagine and re-craft every area of your life. Put this chance to good use.”

When the subways are crowded, the streets are jammed, and the noise reaches levels you never thought were possible, New York can frustrate even those of us who love it most. It’s times like last night, in that beautiful, mystical snowfall, that remind of how much of a home this city is for me, how much of a home it will always be for me. There is a certain crackle of life that lives here, and I feel blessed to live among it.

The image above is not my own. It was taken by Seth Wenig/AP.

Christmas, dreams, finance, holiday, wealth, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – I’m Rich

Christa Avampato

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.” ~ Esther de Waal, author of Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict

Trish Scott, one of the readers of this blog (and a wonderful blogger herself), recently left a comment that got me thinking and connecting some disparate dots that have been showing up in my life. She asked me to consider how I might feel about leaving empty moments empty for a little while. Especially during this time of year, there is an urge and a propensity to fill up everything to the brim: stockings, large holiday dinner plates, space under the tree, our schedules, and the list goes on. Hurry hurry hurry – Christmas is only x number of days away and you’re in your house missing out on all the cheer outside of your door. No wonder we all settle down for a long winter’s nap on December 26th. We’re exhausted! So what if we could just sit, for a moment, and be glad to feel a little empty? What would that do for us?

This Christmas I didn’t make a wish list. For the first time ever I realized I am rich because there isn’t anything I need that I don’t already have. I’m now exactly where I always wanted to be in my financial life. I don’t want for anything; I feel steady and secure financially, despite that the economy is in constant turmoil. With this thought, I felt a tidal wave of gratitude. By Esther de Waal’s beautiful definition of wealth, I am rich. I sat for a moment today and took that feeling in. After so many years of working so hard, wanting so much to not worry about money, I realized I had arrived at my destination. Today, I got there. My heart started humming.

And then I took a look at my busy December. I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to see. I didn’t get to every outing I was invited to, nor every holiday gathering. I had to take some time for myself, and to do some selfless volunteer work which is so needed at this time of year. So I missed out on some experiences. And yet, I feel so extraordinarily lucky that I have so many incredible people in my life to spend my time with, that I have so many projects that I am happy to spend my time on, that I have places to be where I am needed and wanted. I sat for a moment today and took that feeling in. About this time 7 years ago, I decided to leave my job to settle in one place and start to build a life, a community where I felt like I belonged. Today, I realized I had gotten exactly that after so many years of building. What an amazing feat! My heart began to sing.

So now we wait indoors for the Blizzard of 2009 to arrive any minute. We’re supposed to be snowed in with 12 inches of gorgeous, puffy, white snowflakes. Let it be. Snow me in, world. Make me sit down and reflect on the many, many blessings I have in my life. Some of them were hard won, and others showed up like little miracles from thin air. For all of them I am thankful. So here I’ll sit for a bit today, sip some tea, listen to Christmas carols, light a candle that smells like cinnamon, and be glad to just be right here, right now, pinching myself to make sure that this rich and magical life I lead is real.

dreams

My Year of Hopefulness – Empty Moments and Shark Jumping

Christa Avampato

“What do you think is better: the store brand or Breyer’s?” And so began a conversation at my local Whole Foods this week. Breyer’s ice cream and the Whole Foods brand ice cream were the same price. Recognizing that clearly I am an ice cream connoisseur and that I know my stuff when it comes to the delicious frozen treat, a fellow customer was asking me for my opinion. Even for me, this questions was a toss up. I went for the Breyer’s – it had a nicer picture and I could see the black flecks of the vanilla bean in the photo. (For the record, I’ve never tried the Whole Foods brand, and it well may be much better. I’ll try it when I’m next in the store!)

This got me thinking about what names stand for, and how important authenticity is. A lot of people believe we need to strive for authenticity. Brian, my therapist, adamantly disagrees. This week I was telling him about some big steps I have taken in my life recently and how easy they were to do when I just got out of my own way. “That’s because the authentic self wants to come through and the only thing stopping her is you,” he said to me. I can’t argue with that – being authentic is so much easier than trying to be someone else, whether you’re a human being or ice cream. Authenticity is easy; being comfortable with personal authenticity is the tough piece because is demands that we stand up, make our case for who we are when every piece of veneer falls away, and then asks us to support that authentic self, lovely or not.

My friend Anthony opened my eyes this week to the concept of “jumping the shark”. When a TV series has run too long, and loses its way, those in the biz call that “jumping the shark”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark). Jumping the shark occurs at that point where a hit show gets away from what made it a hit in the first place and takes a turn for the worst. This idea made me consider how tough it is to stay authentic and be successful because we have this idea of what success looks and smells like. It’s too easy to let others define us, and before we know it we have to live up to some high ideal we didn’t create and don’t even want. Instead of just being Breyer’s, we now have to be Breyer’s and compete with Whole Foods. Instead of following my dreams and speaking my mind, I need to conform to an accepted ideal in every area of my life. Or do I?

This is the tough part – knowing when to walk away. When do we get off the circus train? When do we decide that being ourselves is much more important, and also more gratifying, than trying to be anything or anyone else? The truth is that we can get there so long as we discover what it means to be who we are when everything else falls away. Who are we in the empty moments?

discovery, education

My Year of Hopefulness – You and Me Against a 50% Graduation Rate

Christa Avampato

“None of this was beyond my potential. It was just beyond my reach” ~ 13 year old apprentice in a Citizen Schools after-school program

Today I had the great good fortune to hear John Payton, President of the Legal Defense Fund, speak. Long considered one of the finest practicing attorneys, particularly in the field of Civil Rights, Mr. Payton exhibited passion and grace when articulating the complicated issue of racism in America, and its tragic legacy. He helped me to see that we the people, all of us, have to get involved in this issue, regardless of our race, because it is plaguing our society to such a degree that it is tough to see a way through.

The statistics that Mr. Payton discussed are the same we see everyday on the front of every newspaper across the country. And they’re horrifying:

– 86% of black 4th graders read below grade level
– Black men make up 41% of prison inmates while only 4% of all higher education students are black men. 1:3 black men will spend a portion of their life in prison
– 30% of children in poor elementary schools, mostly blacks and Latinos, have a vision problem that could easily be corrected with glasses if they had access to an eye doctor. They have insurance through Medicaid, but no access to care. Because of poor vision, they are labeled as “slow learners”
– 50% of black students in New York City drop-put before graduation. In Columbus, Ohio, 60% drop-out and in Baltimore 65% drop-out

And the list of sickening statistics goes on and on to the point that we almost grow numb to the numbers. They are too big, too awful to fathom. So we move to the suburbs. The problem becomes so unnerving that we can’t look it in the eyes anymore. It seems like there’s nothing we can do.

Except that there is something you and I can do. It would be easy, at least in the short-term, to just go back to our little desks in our little cubicles and work away trying to keep our jobs so that we can feed and clothe and house ourselves and our loved ones. Sometimes it seems that this is all we have the energy for, and yet if we don’t do more than we think we can do, these statistics as bad as they are will only get worse. And we can’t afford worse.

So here’s what gave me hope today in the wake of Mr. Payton’s talk: Citizen Schools. Last night I went to the Google offices here in New York. 250 concerned committed adults gathered to talk to four groups of middle school students who learned how to write code to create video games, cell phone applications, and artificial intelligence. 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, with the help of many dedicated Googlers extended their reach far beyond what they thought was possible.

Lennon, a very poised 7th grade student, took the podium to open up the evening. He talked about how Citizen Schools helped him gain confidence and improved his grades. He learned how to make friends and collaborate with others on a project. For the first time, he realized how his studies apply to life and he’s started to think about a career. Dedicated individuals, just like you and me, shared what they know to help these kids like Lennon get another chance to better their own lives.

Turning around these statistics won’t be easy and it will take a long time. It will require great faith in ourselves, our talents, and our ability to make a difference. We can do this, together. 10 kids at a time, one program at a time. A drop in the bucket? Certainly. But consider this – by participating with Citizen Schools, we have the opportunity to save, literally save, 10 lives from becoming part of those scary statistics that John Payton discussed today. How much would you give to save 10 lives? You can start by giving 2 hours a week for 10 weeks through Citizen Schools. To get involved, please visit http://www.citizenschools.org/

courage, dreams, personality, psychology, relationships, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Moments that Made My Life

Christa Avampato

My friend, Josh, over at World’s Strongest Librarian wrote a post that is so beautiful and profound that I had to share it here. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. He talked about the defining moments of his life in terms of when they happened, how he felt about them, and what they meant to him. It’s a form that I love so much that I created my own snapshots of when. So many thanks to Josh for inspiring my writing and my life. Here goes…

When I first saw my niece, I realized why it was so important to have children in our lives.

When my heart broke, I realized that it didn’t take as long to heal and love again as I thought it would.

When he passed away, I didn’t feel as relieved as I thought I would – it was then that I started down the very long path to forgiveness.

When I crossed that finish line, realizing a dream years in the making, I was more grateful for the strength of my body than ever before.

When I decided to keep loving through the hurt, I realized that on the other side there was more love.

When I graduated, I knew at that moment that I could do anything I set my mind to.

When I looked out at the wild surf of South Africa, I realized that I had traveled very far from home and still felt like I belonged.

When I stood in front of a classroom for the first time, I had much more to offer than I ever expected.

When I chased a dream as far as I could and it still wasn’t enough to make it real, I was amazed at my resilience to just get a new dream.

When I said a final good-bye to my dear and faithful friend, I found that not everything or everyone is replaceable. Some parts of our lives and hearts can never be reclaimed, and that’s okay.

When I first put my writing out into the world for everyone to see, I found that there was a lot more support for my ideas that I ever knew and much of that support came from people I didn’t even know.

When the curtain came down and I heard the applause, I knew I had been part of something much greater than myself.

When I almost didn’t get a tomorrow, I understood how precious every moment is and that dreams can’t wait.

When I lost almost all of my belongings, I found that I didn’t really need any of them to survive and thrive and for the first time in my life I felt truly free.

When I found the courage to tell my own story, I discovered that I had the ability to inspire the same courage in others.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
education, game, learning, student

My Year of Hopefulness – Playing Games

Christa Avampato

I woke up this morning to rainy skies and a little knot in my stomach. This is the week that I begin my verbal review for the GRE, and I’m having some anxiety over it. My friend, Allan, made me stop beating myself up over my seemingly large deficiency in vocabulary. Honestly, I don’t recognize half of the words on the GRE as English. Allan clued me in to the fact that no one recognizes these words as English because no one actually ever uses them. I felt mildly better. No matter – they’re showing up on the test, and I have to learn them.

When I was little, I used to play the dictionary game with my mom. I’d open the dictionary to any word, and she would give the definition of the word. I never, ever stumped her. She knew every word, no matter how archaic it was. I couldn’t understand it. How did she know all of these words? And how come I didn’t know any of them? Why do I still feel like I don’t know any of them now?

Begrudgingly, I went to my 3 inch thick GRE prep book, and started making my flashcards with a heavy heart. And then I decided I had better get with it. I had better make a game out of this or I am doomed to not do well. And I can’t afford a low score. I just can’t – PhD programs are competitive and every piece of an application counts.

The GRE book is full of helpful hints, and as I learned each hint I saw puzzle pieces falling into place. Now I know how my mom could figure out all of those words. She took many years of Latin, requiring her to learn a variety of roots, suffixes, and prefixes. Our language is largely made of little pieces that are recombined again and again in different ways. For example, “mal-” means bad, so words beginning with “mal-” likely have a negative meaning. It also means bad in Spanish, so knowing a foreign language helps enormously when deciphering new vocabulary words because English is largely a language of other languages. My mother speaks French and Latin, so it’s no wonder the size of her English vocabulary is through the roof!

As my GRE studying progressed, I found myself getting more and more excited about it. I found myself finally, finally understanding pieces of our language I never knew before. Studying for the GRE isn’t just to gain entrance to a program; it’s actually beneficial for my life and for my writing. Now when I read, I have an eye on roots and suffixes and prefixes. I see arguments being pieced together with new insights that I never saw before. I see polygons and parallel lines and acute and obtuse angles everywhere I turn. The basis of the GRE is all around us. And while I’ve seen all of these things before, I’m now noticing them with new eyes and a new found curiosity.

My learning took a great leap forward today. It’s so easy, and more than a little tempting, to get lost in our books and studies. The real power of our studies is when we can pick our eyes up from our books, look out into the world, and see that opportunities for learning, and application of our learning, is all around us. Or better yet, our learning helps us to see what could be out in the world, and gives us the tools and the resolve to go make it happen. Whoever said games were only for kids?

dreams, writing

Owning Pink Feature

Christa Avampato

I am so honored today to have my writing featured on Owning Pink at http://www.owningpink.com/2009/12/12/your-one-wild-and-precious-life/. I’m excited to see the response to the question: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

art, story, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Writing Ourselves Free

Christa Avampato

“Words do not label things already there. Words are like the knife of a carver: They free the idea, the thing, from the general formlessness of the outside. As a man speaks, not only is his language in a state of birth, but also the very thing about which he is talking.” ~ Inuit Wisdom

Today I finished up the book The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist, and the Inuit quote above kicks off one of the last chapters. So many of her ideas about money helped me to reconsider the role of money in my life, both when I was very young and had no money and now when I have a well paying job. Her words helped me to see money as just another form of energy which we can utilize to shape the world around us. In her words I was able to make peace with finance, a difficult thing to do in our consumer-driven, debt-ridden culture.

Words are powerful tools not just for communicating ideas, but also to form them. So often I come to a blank screen on my computer, unsure of what I’ll write or where my writing will lead. Over time, I’ve learned to trust the process of writing the way that a carver trusts his knife. In my imagination there is always a story waiting to be told, similar to the figure that is within a slate of marble. The skill of the writer or artist releases the form.

I’m now weeks away from meeting my goal of writing about hope every day for a year. I started this journey as someone who felt let down by the world, someone who was worried about her future. Now that I have spent nearly 365 days actively seeking out what’s hopeful in our society, I am emerging from my quest with a confident, revitalized soul. I wrote myself free form the burden of worry.

So often we think a lack of commitments frees us. We give up relationships, jobs, materials goods, and tasks in pursuit of greater flexibility and freedom. And sometimes that works. Though before I give up anything or anyone, I remind myself of Willa Cather’s quote in O Pioneers! – “Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere.” I want my freedom to mean that I choose to do everything in my life, not that I am forced to do something which I don’t want to do. My writing frees me because it lets me express what I’m feeling, and gives me the opportunity to connect with others. I’ve found that my connections to others frees my own heart rather than binding it up.

I found my writing voice not by closing down and shutting off, but by opening up to the experiences of the world and making the commitment to come here to this blog every day and share those experiences. I became a better writer by committing to the craft. I think life is shockingly similar to writing in this way – we live it better by practicing, by stepping out and stepping up, by committing our heart to others and to the world around us. And as we do this, I hope we’ll all take some time and write it all down. Having the courage to tell others our own stories ironically frees them to do the same.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

books, speaking

My Year of Hopefulness – Teaching butterflies to fall in line

Christa Avampato

“The best speakers know enough to be scared…the only difference between the pros and novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.” ~ Edward R. Murrow

I have a little secret – all my life I have had a terrible battle with stage fright. Job interviews, first dates, meeting new friends, first day of class. Any new experience with new people has me quaking in my boots for weeks beforehand. I combat this with a brave face and decent acting skills, but it’s painful. In college, I lost 10 pounds in a week preparing for the play, Agnes of God. I kept getting sick right before every rehearsal and then right before every show. I have a hard time watching debates on TV because I get sympathy stage fright!

This weekend I read the book Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun. The book is riotously funny and Berkun is an endearingly honest writer. He makes no bones about the knocks he gets for his profession, and yet his humor brings about such a sense of respect and admiration for what he does day in and day out to earn a living.

The quote by Edward R. Murrow is one of my favorites that Berkun uses, and the chapter of the book that follows this quote is better yet. Berkun lists the top 14 fears people indicated in a recent survey. Speaking before a group was the greatest fear people had. Death was #7, loneliness was #9, and escalators was #14. Crazy when we consider that for the most part we can avoid speaking in public, and we can’t avoid things like, oh, death. We’re most afraid of something we can control. What does that say about us?

Recognizing the ludicrous ranking, Berkun goes on to talk about his own fear of public speaking, and the fear of speaking publicly that many of the world’s notable speakers have (Bono, Elvis, JFK, and Barbara Walters to name just a few.) The trick isn’t eradicating the fear; it’s figuring out how to use it to our best advantage that counts. Get the butterflies to fall in line. For me, my fear is best used to teach and my defense is to prepare, prepare, prepare. And if you’re thinking about that ol’ “imagine everyone in their underwear” trick, Berkun will give you his perspective on why that is a very, very bad idea.

In Confessions of a Public Speaker, I realized that the fear of public speaking is really about being afraid we just aren’t enough. Essentially, public speakers of every variety stand up there and put themselves in the perfect position to be knocked down and dragged by the hair to the back of the room. They tell themselves “what if I’m not good enough, smart enough, or entertaining enough?” The fear of public speaking is really the fear of not being accepted for who we are.

Later on in the book, Berkun discusses the reasons people go to hear public speakers, including the desire to learn something, be inspired, and have a positive experience they can share with others. Simple reasons really, and when looked at through the lens of “give the people what they want”, the butterflies begin to work together to create one gorgeous pattern, each lending their own unique flair. For the many of us who suffer from stage fright, I’m convinced that Berkun is on to something here.