Four

Last Thursday, Ed and I marked four years together. We couldn't celebrate that day since we were both at school, busy with papers and classes and group projects and exams, but this struck me as perfectly appropriate. As I kissed him that morning and headed out the door, I thought that this year has been our best yet. And I realize now that it's because we're both busy being passionate about things that demand our time and attention, and that are making us richer as individuals, and stronger as a couple.

We came home on Friday after two days of being away, of collecting stories and moments and news and thoughts. We gussied up and headed out for Indian, and spent the next several hours catching up, trading jokes, and processing the days' happenings through the shared lens of our togetherness. And I think this is what it's all about. As the "Did I tell you?!"s and "Can you believe that?!"s echoed into the night, I felt lucky. Lucky to be living my life, and lucky to be sharing it with Ed.

So while Thursday marked a milestone and serves as a marker for how far we've traveled together, it's not really about that day at all. Instead, it's about all the days before, and all the days after, and all the millions of moments we've been lucky enough to share.

Happy Anniversary, baby!

Reality Check: the Dukkha, Part II

(Part I)
So, convinced as I was that the world was going to hell in a hand basket and that I was singlehandedly driving it there, I professed as much to Ed who just stood there, taking me in for a minute.

"Elli?" he began. "No. You're not."

Huh. Interesting.

He went on to remind me that as much as we try, and as committed as we are, and as much as we believe we can fix the world's problems, the fact remains that we cannot because such absolutes just don't exist. He described a Buddhist principle called dukkha which, in its simplest terms, is the condition of constant suffering that essentially defines existence. More specifically, dukkha implies the idea that nothing is absolute or permanent, but rather everything is in constant flux between good and bad, joy and pain, damage and repair. He suggested that human existence is the same, caught perpetually somewhere between success and failure, commitment and lack of resolve. He said that the danger is in forgetting this, and feeling as though unless we reside in the extremes of excellence, we are nowhere near good enough; that if we're not doing everything, we're not doing anything at all.

Ah.

He's right; in this way, we essentially set ourselves up to fail. Instead, wisdom comes in recognizing the vast gray between polar blacks and whites, and accepting that while it's not everything, it's something. He reminded me that the value is in the effort, not the result, and that our responsibility here on this planet, in this life, is simply to ourselves. Without letting this become an excuse or a reason for selfishness, this means living the kind of life that brings you closer to the good, the joy and the repair; the kind of life that recognizes that these things are found to a great degree in service to others and to something bigger that we can't help but believe in.

I need reminders like these sometimes, when it all starts to feel too big, when it starts to feel like if I turn away it might collapse on itself and I'll be left brushing the dust of the disaster under the carpet of my life. I need reminders like these to keep hold of what idealism there is left in the world, and what belief I have that I can, indeed, make some kind of difference.

Every day at school, I walk through the bright entrance and down the hall where etched in bold letters along one wall, it reads:

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Horace Mann, the first president of Antioch, wrote this in sum of his educational mission. And I take it as my charge, because I can't help it. And because otherwise, I certainly won't.

Reality Check: the Dukkha, Part I

For a class this week I had to compile a list of everything I own--everything--and write an essay about how property is an inherently personal, psychological, political and ecological thing. Whew, dudes. I own a lot of stuff. My spreadsheet is 15 categories wide and hundreds and hundreds of items long. Suffice it to say that I own more than one hundred shirts (Go ahead and count yours. I bet you'll be just as shocked as I was). Where I acquired these and how I store them all is beyond me, but this realization alone was enough to make me weary. Interestingly, my longest category was Kitchenwares, with a total of 50 unique items (with, mind you, "20 Tupperware" being one "item"). In other categories, my most fun items were definitely "Magic bubbles," "four glitter pens" and "six juggling props." On the less-fun but somewhat impressive side, I own four (count them, four!) cosmetics bags and 28 journals. Seriously.

The exercise as a whole was illuminating to say the least, revealing that though I don't consider myself tightly bound to material possessions, my lifestyle surely doesn't reflect it. My essay espoused ways that my stuff, at least in part, helps me define who I am and how, for the first time since leaving college I have all my stuff (and myself!) in one place and finally, oh rapture, feel "complete." It's disgusting but true, and I know I'm not alone on this. Other nomadic post-college souls have expressed as much to me, and what's more, this emotional/identity attachment to our stuff is part of what makes us human, or at least American.

On political and ecological levels, the ownership of all this stuff implicates me as someone with a fair bit of power in the global economy, and a fair hand in extracting the Earth's resources rather indiscriminately. This fact is unsettling to me as a self-professed "environmentalist," as you might imagine. I am left reconciling what I swear are good intentions to "live simply so that others may simply live" with an apparent refusal to actually change my ways and let up on my irresponsible consumer habits.

Blech. This is (I am) getting uglier all the time.

What's more, I seem to be the living antithesis to the field that I have wholeheartedly devoted my life (and my grad school dollars) to. You see, one of the main tenets of environmental education is that with education comes awareness, and with awareness comes a shift to more environmentally responsible behavior. But? Hi. My name is Elli and I own more stuff than the entire country of Bangladesh. I know it's bad; I even understand the in-depth eco-social implications of all this stuff, where it came from and how it got here. But I have yet to change my behavior.

Or have I?

After detailing the depths of my demonism in an essay my professor will surely love to read, I moaned my way into the living room where I declared to Ed that I was single-handedly destroying everything for everyone. Luckily, Ed is wise and knows the Buddha, and saved me from the self-loathing that is such a buzzkill (not to mention a drain on the world-saving motivation) among young idealists like me.

I'll hit you tomorrow with the depths of Ed's wisdom and the million tiny ways he is the best friend a girl could have. In the meantime, go inventory your stuff. I guarantee it will change your life.

Winter

I've got sleep behind my eyes and tea in my belly, and last night we drove home in driving snow from a glittery cocktail party with sparkling people. We dressed up in city shoes and clinked glasses and laughed loudly after only one glass of wine, because it's that time of year and the flurries had started to fall. Today it's winter, bright and cold outside, but warm and clean in our house where good things reside. And outside our window, birds flit and flap around the feeder while the miniature horse is galloping, puffing steamy breath into the frigid air. There's work to do but plans for later, a folk opera? With friends from work. But for now, the hum of the dryer where warm towels and linens spin, the kettle whistling on the stove, public radio echoing through the halls.