To Gyre and Gambol: March 2015

25 March, 2015

Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

How cool is this?

I was recently nominated by Janine from Reflections from a Redhead for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award.

I've been a bit quiet on this blog lately...busy at work, busy at play (I went to Stowe to ski last weekend!), and busy studying (for my board exams this Tuesday). So I needed an excuse to take a break and write.

Here are Janine's thought-provoking questions...

Why did you start blogging?

I first started blogging (on Xanga!) in 2003 when I was moving to Copenhagen. I thought it would be a good way to share my experiences with family and friends back home. I wrote a lot as a child and teenager - and I was probably pretty good, or at least better than most - but in college, I never really found my niche. I didn't think of myself as a journalist, so I didn't fall in with the student newspaper, but my fiction wasn't as abstract and "literary" as most of the English majors' seemed to be. As a first-year, I applied to an advanced writing workshop, using an excerpt of a novel I'd started in high school. I got accepted but I was too young to really jump in and give/take criticism. Later, when I joined the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, part of the membership process included giving a speech, debate or literary presentation (which had to "pass" the established members). I read a short story that I'd written during that workshop. What I remember most was how it split the Hall. Most literary presentations were underattended and passed easily; mine prompted more discussion and debate than I'd ever seen before. The members who traditionally stayed away from the "literary" aspects of the Society were strongly in favor of it passing: one got up to speak in support of it and said, "This is the first time I've listened to a literary presentation and understood what it was about." The members who were traditionally strongly involved in the literary side were opposed...with 15 years hindsight, mostly because it wasn't written in the dreamy style where much is reflected upon and little actually happens. (I'm not arguing it was a brilliant piece but it was good enough.) Think of Raymond Carver vs. Gabriel García Márquez, on a vastly less gifted scale.

Anyway...that is where I was coming from when I first decided to give blogging a try. The full story about how I ended up writing this blog is posted here.

What do you love about getting older?

Pretty much everything. I'm still figuring out my purpose in life, but it feels more like an adventure now and less like an agonizing slog uphill in the mud. It gets easier to be self-aware and live in the present. I think this is probably true for a lot of people.

I really related to the speech Tina Fey gave at our alma mater (UVA!) where she was asked "what she wished she'd done sooner in her career" and she replied, "I wish I'd started waxing my eyebrows earlier." Not so much the specifics of eyebrows ;-) but I feel like the first twenty years of my life (1980s, 1990s, early 2000s) were a time of really bad fashion and style choices - Sun-In with dark brown hair, for instance, is a really bad idea. A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned out my closet and I tried one of my favorite shirts from 2002 - it was a black silk knit with an attached black leather and rhinestone collar. My sister took one look and was like, Oh God, no, throw that out. The nice thing about being an actual grown-up is that I don't try very hard anymore and yet the results are so much more attractive. I also finally - a perk of medical education - have the self-discipline to work out regularly. "Running" on an elliptical while trying to read for a class on "the sexual and the sacred in Islam" is not working out.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

This is so hard. Do I have to work for a living? If so, probably a townhouse in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. or a farm with lots of land in the Blue Ridge Mountains outside Charlottesville. Or better yet, both. I'd love to live in Portland, Oregon, too, but it's far from my family. If I didn't have to work - supporting myself writing! - I think it gets even harder to decide. I'd love to change with the seasons - fall in Charlottesville, winter at a house in the mountains in Colorado with great skiing, spring in Oxford, summer on the Isle of Skye in Scotland (with some weekend trips to Edinburgh or London?) or maybe somewhere in the South Pacific (Cook Islands?). I want everything - to be able to walk out my back door and hike or ski (or swim or row) for miles without running into another person but also to be able to walk down the street to a farmers' market or an art gallery or a nice wine bar. I want oceans and rivers and mountains, sunshine and snow. It's impossible to choose.

Kids or no kids? There is no right or wrong answer.

I have a three-year-old. He is hilarious now and just getting to the age where we can start to do some of the things I love together. I definitely plan on having more kids, but for now I want to enjoy the one I have. I work a lot and love my job, and so I feel like spacing out my children is the key to balancing it all. My great-grandmother famously advised my grandmother (my father's mother) that you should "have a baby and rock that baby until he gets too big to be rocked, and only then" have another one. But I admit, I sometimes feel the need to justify why I haven't had another one yet.

Where do you want to take your blog in the future?

I really don't know. I would like to build my audience, but I know it's hard when I don't really have a focus or target audience (turns out that "people I know who think I'm smart and funny" is not actually a target audience). Right now, it serves the purpose of letting me flex the writing muscle and not get too rusty, until I have more time to write for traditional publication. It's also a way of thinking out loud.

Are you a folder or a scruncher?

A "hanger"! Is that a word? I can't fold but I'm very neat - so almost everything except jeans and workout clothes gets hung up. Last summer, I moved back into the house I grew up in, and the first thing I did was install California Closets. When I travel, I roll my clothes, military-style. It fits so much better.

What are you most grateful for?

Writing my answers to the questions about favorite songs and guilty pleasures made me think of this story:

When I was growing up, my parents had season tickets to our local symphony and other performances. When I was 11 or 12, they took us to see Kiss of the Spiderwoman, which is where I learned about political prisoners, torture and that sometimes men like men. Thanks, Mom and Dad! No, really...I am profoundly grateful that they were so willing to show us the world, as it is, in all its glory and despair, with hope and without judgment. They made me the person I am and they made me a vision for the person I'll always aspire to be.

What are you most looking forward to in 2015?

Hmmm. I'm looking forward to being surprised - I hope there will be a lot of good surprises this year. I'm also looking forward to going to the Fogo Island Inn on vacation this summer and rowing a lot more, on Cazenovia Lake.

Actually, at this bleak point in our very long and bitterly cold Northeastern winter, I am quite desperately awaiting spring. The first day I can wear a skirt or dress without tights and boots will be an ecstatic one. I love - need - four seasons, but I'm ready for the next one. Last weekend, I went skiing in Stowe, Vermont and those last good runs were the psychological end of winter for me.

Usually, I have a long list of books that I'm awaiting release but so far this year, my Amazon pre-order list is looking a little thin. Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant is out but I'm thinking about saving it for a holiday, so I can savor it. And while it's not always the most original, I've had a lot of fun reading Sarah J. Maas' Queen of Glass series, so I'm looking forward to the release of Queen of Shadows in September.

What’s your favourite song? Why not share the YouTube clip?

I have a lot of favorite songs, so how about a favorites playlist:

(1) "On the Turning Away", Pink Floyd (my first and forever favorite)

(2) "Casimir Pulaski Day", Sufjan Stevens (inspired one of the novels I've been writing)

(3) "Fields of Gold", the Eva Cassidy version

(4) "Angels", The xx

(5) "Sigh No More", Mumford and Sons (I used to sing this to my son when he was a baby - "Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you. It will set you free. Be more like the man you were made to be.")

(6) "Stubborn Love", The Lumineers

(7) "Youth Knows No Pain", Lykke Li

(8) "Rhiannon", Stevie Nicks (another old favorite - I picked this for my personal "theme song" when our group of summer orientation leaders in college decided we should have our own soundtrack)

(9) "Hurt", the Johnny Cash version

(10) "Stay Alive", José González
(11) "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead", Stars
(12) "Deep Red Bells", Neko Case

This week, I've been listening to George Ezra ("Breakaway" is my favorite on that album), Tigana Santana (good for studying!), and Ernesto Lecuona (apologies, I have to make a separate list for classical favorites...it would take me much longer to decide), and I've also, unfortunately, gotten that song from The Hunger Games ("Are You Coming to the Hanging Tree?") stuck in my head, so I keep humming it at awkward times.

But this one is possibly my favorite YouTube video: "King and Lionheart", Of Monsters and Men.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Hmmm (again). Singing Jesus Christ Superstar at the top of my lungs while driving to work? Something reminded me of musicals recently...as a child, this was my sister's and my favorite (the 1970s film version). I think we learned about 80% of our theology from Jesus Christ Superstar (and the rest in Catholic after-school religious education). We thought this was hilarious: "Always wanted to be an Apostle. Knew that I could make if I tried. Then, when we retire, we will write the Gospel, so they'll still talk about us when we've died..." I am, however, eternally grateful for my dad pointing out that "I Don't Know How to Love Him" was not a good choice for a high school musical audition (look up the lyrics). Other people did not get such good guidance.

The Rules

Link to the person who nominated you.
Add the award logo.
Answer the questions your nominator has asked.
Nominate 7 other blogs and let them know via comments.
Ask your nominees 10 questions.

And the Nominees Are (if they choose to accept)…

(I promise - it's fun! Kind of like being interviewed.)

Channeling Hippocrates

Ms. Strained Consciousness

Diet Daze and Other Unimportant Musings

A Novel Review: Writing, Reading, and the Rest of My Military Life
...more to come soon...

The Questions

Why did you start blogging?
Do you have a favorite scar? Tell us its story.
Are you sunrise, daylight, twilight or night?
What's the best meal you've ever had?
If you wrote a book, what would it be about? Write the inside front jacket.
Tattoos - yea or nay?
What do you wish you were better at?
Which young-adult bestseller-turned-movie do you dislike the most? (Twilight, Divergent, etc.) Why?
Public school or private school? (Interpret however you like...)
What fashion decision do you most regret?

23 March, 2015

{this moment} 129

{this moment} is a Monday ritual that my father started in May 2011, and that I have maintained since May 2014. He described it as "A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past. A simple moment along my life's Journey - but one over which I wish to linger and savor each treasured aspect of the memories it evokes." When he passed away in February 2014, he left a folder containing images that he hoped to share in the months and years ahead. For some, I share my perspective of the story behind the moment on Thursdays, in a companion ritual called {this memory}. For others, the story is lost in the ocean of time, but I welcome flights of imagination and speculation from readers.

{this moment} was adapted from cath's wonderful blog ~just my thoughts. She, in turn, borrowed it from Pamanner's Blog. My dad suggested, "Check out their blogs, and if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your {this moment} in the comments for each of us to find and see. If you are moved or intrigued by my {this moment}, please leave a comment." I encourage the same.

AECB

19 March, 2015

{this memory} 128

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

I'm getting so far behind!

This is me (then 5 years old) and my sister (aged 4) before my first ballet and tap dancing recital, in 1987. We are in the study/library of my parents' house. White tights, huh? I haven't seen those in a very long time. I am also apparently unembarrassed by the ridiculous costume and hat. I think I wore more makeup in those first few recitals than in the next twenty years. After a couple years at the dance school of dramatic costumery, I quit tap (thankfully) and switched to more "serious" school, where our leotards and tutus were a bit more...subdued. :-) I was never particularly good, but I get a lot of (honestly very flattering) questions in my adult life about whether I was ever a ballet dancer, so I guess something stuck!

16 March, 2015

(this moment} 128

14 March, 2015

A tree grows in the Blue Ridge Mountains

I can't replace Saturdays with the Tree, but being pretty fond of trees in general, I have more than a few favorite photographs of them. I took this on an afternoon hike a couple months before I graduated from UVA and a few days before I took the MCAT (the story that goes with the test was published here) so I needed the break from studying.

Humpback Rock, near Waynesboro, Virginia

April 2002

09 March, 2015

{this moment: then and now} 7

{this moment} is a Monday ritual that my father started in May 2011, and that I have maintained since May 2014. He described it as "A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past..."

{then and now} is a twist on that ritual. People often ask me if my son looks like his father, because he is blonde and blue-eyed, while I am dark-haired and dark-eyed. In fact, aside from those features, we are very much alike in looks (and, for better and worse, personality). Even more so, my son strikingly resembles my father as a young child. He has the exact same shade of steel blue-gray eyes that his grandfather had. Every so often, I stumble across a photo of myself as a child that seems like an echo of one I know I've taken of my son. {then and now} is a space to revel in the sometimes surreal elements of the passage of time.

~AECB

07 March, 2015

Beginning in the middle...

A little over year ago, shortly after my father died, his very talented friend/fellow blogger Janine Ripper asked me if I wanted to join his blogging circle, Personal Bloggers Are Us (check out a mostly updated list of member blogs here).

At the time, I only knew a few things about the group: that my dad would occasionally forward posts that particularly spoke to him; that for Christmas last year, he had given me a hilarious book called Rock the Kasbah: A Memoir of Misadventure, which one of the members, Marie Loerzel, had written based on her blog; and that many PBAU members had written eloquent and profoundly moving tributes to him and his impact on their lives and writing.

So of course, I said yes - I always say yes - but the trouble was, I didn't have a very active blogging life. True, I did own a lot of blog names - I was better at thinking of cool and/or witty titles that cryptically referenced medicine, or were based on song lyrics and Italo Calvino quotes, than actually writing about my experiences. Cases in point: Altered Sensorium, Wernicke's Aphasia, Girl Contemplating Infinity on a Desk Chair, A Luscious Mix of Words and Tricks, etc. And in March 2013, I had started a cooking blog called The Wooden Spoon, but it was less about blogging than about using my imagined audience to motivate myself to better record family recipes. Writing down a family cookbook, illustrating it with family photos and beautiful shots of food, and eventually printing and binding it for all of my cousins had been a dream for years. The blog finally got the ball rolling, and I figured, even if it took me another 10 years to create a book, at least I was getting the recipes down before they were lost for good.

One thing led to another, and I finally found the right place to put all (okay, some) of the words that were always tumbling around my head - right here, on my dad's blog.

A few months ago, Janine asked if I had any interest in writing for an intriguing new travel social media site, called Jummp. Coincidentally, I just entered the period that I think of as "The Least I Have Traveled." For the past 16 years, I had lived all over the world, and never closer than a six-hour drive from my hometown (and that was for a brief year only). For those 16 years, nearly every holiday and every vacation longer than a three-day weekend was kicked off in an airport. (I got to be really, really fond of Vino Volo.) In a record eight weeks in 2013, I took 12 flights with my then-one-year old son (including taking him to Guatemala, which I wrote about here).

Last summer, I moved back to my hometown, and after making one last trip to Colorado for a conference, I realized that - drumroll, please - I didn't want to fly. This was shocking. I love to fly. I really do. It took two and a half years of near-monthly air travel with an infant/toddler before I stopped loving it and genuinely needed a break. So for much of this (academic) year, I have not and will not be getting a plane. I've been on short trips, both work and social, to Lake George, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia, and I'm headed to Stowe to ski in a couple weeks...but I have not set foot in an airport since August 2, 2014. That is crazy to me! I am stunned that I've found it more relaxing than claustrophobic!

I hope it will turn out to have been a much needed break - like a fast, almost - before jumping back in and going to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for the first time this summer.

Anyway - I've digressed again - I didn't have anything upcoming/current to write about for Jummp, but I found myself thinking about some of my most memorable trips and I ended up writing a memoir-ish essay about a road trip I took around Iceland in 2007.

And - oh yeah - you can now read all about it here!

When I originally submitted the essay, I didn't have a digital version of the picture of the cave, Grjótagjá...

05 March, 2015

{this memory} 127

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

September 2008, Lafayette, Colorado...

During my internship at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, I had three weeks of vacation, and I spent all of them in Colorado, then a bit of my "dream" state. At the end of the year, I transferred there to finish my residency and fellowship...five years in all, during which I vacillated wildly between intense gratitude for waking up every day to spectacular Rocky Mountain vistas, and deep homesickness for the lush, humid, green East Coast. Don't get me wrong, Colorado totally fulfilled its end of the bargain. I'm just an East Coast girl - all grey/black wardrobe and dark, ironic humor - at heart.**

This picture is from my first vacation of internship, which coincided with my twenty-sixth birthday. We celebrated it at Sushi Sasa, by letting the chef make us whatever he wanted, which was pretty damn awesome. On the last day of my vacation, I checked something off the bucket list - flying trapeze. Denver doesn't / didn't have a big trapeze school (like New York and Chicago, among others), but I Googled and found a low-key circus arts club near Boulder, that allowed people to come and give the trapeze a try.

This is my first swing... I did eventually work up the nerve to let go with both hands but my timing was off and I missed the catch. Oh well. Hopefully I'll try again someday.

**Mostly. For my son's third birthday, I promised to teach him to rock climb (which I did, technically, learn on the East Coast, in high school), starting in a gym. The staff told him they had never seen climbing shoes so small before. I was so proud of him. He was definitely scared but kept saying he wanted to give it another try. Little Colorado boy!

To Gyre and Gambol