Hell on Wheels (Surviving I-40)

My commute to work used to be five minutes door to door – maybe seven if I hit all the lights red. Today my commute on a good day is 45 minutes and on a bad day, well, I don’t even want to talk about that.

I moved to Winston Salem almost two years ago to live with the woman who would become my wife. My job is in Greensboro and hers is in Winston Salem so someone was going to have to “suck it up” as she said. And that would be me.

Who wouldn’t drive 72.2 miles round trip to see this smile every day?

Alas, the things we do for love.

Now I’m basically spending 7.5 hours a work week in my car and to survive I have had to be very intentional and creative about how I spend this time. So I thought I would share my mad commuter skills with you. No, they’re not for everyone but they have helped to keep me relatively sane with moderate road rage for almost two years.

NPR – This is a natural. Everyone on WFDD, my NPR station of choice, has very calm voices, which is really nice, especially at 7:20 AM when I leave my house. I love the mix of local news and the national big picture. And I could listen to Sylvia Poggioli read the phone book. The only problem with NPR was that I was often hearing the same stories twice – once in the morning and then again in the evening. And I was becoming one of those public radio nerds that begins cocktail party conversations with, “I heard on NPR…” That is only charming or interesting the first five times.
SiriusXM radio – This is essential because it gives you tons of options. Although I do not personally own any flannel items of clothing and I do carry a purse, as in a real handbag, I confess to being the stereotypical lesbian when it comes to sports, especially football. So during football season Mike and Mike in the Morning on the ESPN station is my escort for the drive into work.

These are my Mikes.

For the uninitiated, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic are two dudes that sit around talking about sports for four hours every weekday morning. My wife cares more about the mating patterns of boll weevils than she does sports, so it’s fun to have my own in-car water cooler to hang around, especially on Monday mornings after big games.

After football season is over, my tolerance for that much testosterone wears thin and I’m on to something else.

My pals Mario and Julia and some green guy.

Like Entertainment Weekly’s (yes, the magazine) station. It’s a bit like eating a Pop Tart – it has no intellectual nutritional value but it surely is tasty. My favorite show is on late in the afternoon, News and Notes with Julia Cunningham and Mario Correa. It’s basically a straight woman and her GBF talking about pop culture and you’re eavesdropping. It can be really delicious at times, especially when they’re busting on Mariah Carey or the latest episode of The Bachelor.

In my fantasy – spending so much time in my car is also conducive to day dreaming – my bestie Carla and I have our own show, Bookends, just like this blog and we dish endlessly on really important things like who would be our celebrity besties – Amy Adams and Ina Garten, and who would not – Gwyneth and Reese Witherspoon. Oh, and “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips would be our show’s theme song. #staytuned

Audio books – This can be hit or miss and for me it’s more about the reader than the book. Sissy Spacek reading To Kill a Mockingbird has been my absolute favorite. Funny, since I had read the book and seen the film several times, but she brought the story alive again and created an entirely new experience for me. I’ve had a few stinkers, too, notably Frances Mayes’ latest, Under Magnolia . I loved her voice on Under the Tuscan Sun but this one was a monotone snooze fest not recommended for interstate driving.
Foreign language CDs – Last summer I listened to Pimsleur’s Introductory Italian and that certainly keep me entertained for weeks. I wouldn’t say that I learned Italian but I could ask directions when in Rome.

My wife and I are going to Paris in September, so I’ll start listening to those CDs tout suite.

Silence – That’s my default on drive homes when I’m suffering from sensory bombardment and I just don’t want to hear anything but the humming of my Soul. Oh, yeah, that’s my car, a Kia Soul. And lately, on these quiet drives, I’ve started taking photos. Calm down, I’m not endangering myself or others – I’m only snapping when the car is stopped and posting later. I’m liking this practice and thinking about incorporating it into an App that would make me a fortune. Roadstergram, anyone?
The Soulmobile

The list could go on – pod casts, music, singing, writing out loud, etc. but this is enough for now. I don’t know how long I can keep this up and I feel like a weenie for complaining – my good friend, Rowe, has been commuting from Greensboro to Raleigh for years – without a peep.

He’s clearly a better person than I am. I know he’s a better driver.

Anyway, today the sun is shining, traffic is a breeze, and Mario and Julia are trashing Jennifer Lopez’s latest bad movie.

It is well with my Soul.

Commute with a view. Photo credit: The driver

Encore

I’ve often thought that the term “celebration of life” was a bit of a spin job, designed to make us all feel better about someone’s death. After all, grieving and celebrating seem like natural antonyms of each other.

I stand corrected after attending my late friend, Suzanne’s, Celebration of Life this past Saturday. Suzanne died unexpectedly on December 18^th from a massive stroke and I, like most of the large crowd in attendance at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Saturday, still couldn’t believe that such a bright spirit had simply vanished.

The mournful tones of a lone bagpiper washed over me as soon as I opened my car door and my face was wet with tears before I even made my way inside the church. There would be many more tears but mostly ones of abundant joy for having been in the circle of such an extraordinary human being.

Suzanne’s celebration of life had it all – gorgeous music performed by her beloved Bel Canto chorus, a tender and funny eulogy delivered by a dear friend, and an inspiring homily given by a minister who seemed to know her heart and her struggles.

Light was in abundance in all manner of ways at Holy Trinity on Saturday.

I smiled throughout her eulogy as I learned so much about my friend that I never knew – including a hilarious story about her being surprised by an earnest pack of Webelos while skinny-dipping in a Texas pond one hot summer’s day. I could almost hear what the minister described as Suzanne’s “unfettered peels of laughter” chiming in with the rest of us as the story unfolded.

I learned that she was a “devoted encourager” often writing notes to young people, particularly those pursuing a career in the arts, and often enclosing a check with her kind words. I smiled as I remembered receiving such a note in support of Triad Health Project, the non-profit that I work for.

I really hope I saved that note.

I smiled again when I heard her described as “swift to love” and that she was known for her “constant practice of generosity.”

To know Suzanne was to also know her passionate love of music, particularly choral music and this music was the soul of her service on Saturday. So it was perfect when the Bel Canto company, her singers, many singing through tears, performed In Paradisum from Maurice Durufle’s Requiem, Op. 9 before Suzanne’s ashes were committed to the columbarium at Holy Trinity. This achingly beautiful piece translates from the Latin as “Into Paradise” and includes these lyrics:

“May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May choirs of angels welcome you and lead you to the bosom of Abraham.”

Choirs of angels – yes, nothing else would do for Suzanne Goddard’s arrival.

And may her celestial concert series commence. Brava, dear woman!

My swift to love friend, Suzanne.

Connecting to place

It’s a cloudless, sunny day – the kind that doesn’t feel much like January. Coats will be worn, but unzipped. Gloves will be off, but tucked in the coat pockets just in case. When I take my dog to the big open field by the middle school in our neighborhood, I un-clip her leash from her collar and she runs into the wind, smiling. She too feels the shift in the air.

By Carla Kucinski

It is my day off, and I’m spending it writing, reading, reflecting. Though I will confess, I spent the morning working on a presentation for work, but I did it in my pajamas and slippers, and therefore, it felt less “work-like.” But I surrendered at noon, not allowing it to take over my entire day.

I am in my living room, sitting on the couch, notebook in my lap, sunshine streaming through the French doors, warming the room like an oven. My dog lies on the living room floor in a patch of sun the shape of a rectangle. She is breathing softly through her nose, the way dogs do when they first drift off to sleep.

I live essentially in three rooms in my condo: the bedroom, the kitchen and this room. These spaces occupy the majority of my time. It’s been a few months now since we moved into our condo. I like it here. It’s cozy and compact, but not in a claustrophobic way. I like that I can talk to my husband in the living room while I prepare dinner in the kitchen and we share moments from our day. I like that when I step out onto the balcony, which seems to always be bathed in sunlight I can look out over the tree tops and roof tops, and watch the seasons change. Sunsets from here are spectacular in their various shades of pink.

By Carla Kucinski

What’s not fun is hauling three bags of groceries up three flights of stairs, and the dogs next door that bark every time we set foot on our doorstep. But it beats raking a yard full of leaves. In any case, you get used to it. Sometimes, you grow to love it, even the force of the train a half-mile down the street, whose blaring horn slices the dark and stillness of the night. There’s comfort in knowing someone else is awake early in the morning.

We drove by our old house the other day. It felt strangely foreign to me, as if we never lived there. Everything about it was the same, except for a pair of white lace curtain hanging from the front window. I never hung curtains in that window; they would have blocked the view.

I’ve realized that I’ve learned to adapt easily to new surroundings. I can quickly turn a house into a home. Start from scratch. I dream of one day owning our own house, a quaint bungalow with a forest for a backyard and a front porch for swinging. I can picture the house, but never the place.

Angel Oak Tree by Carla Kucinski

All this moving sometimes makes me feel rootless. Without roots, there’s no commitment. I’ll always be searching for the next thing. Owning a home both terrifies me and excites me. Owning keeps one from moving, which is the part that scares me. Renting gives one flexibility, prevents you from getting stuck. But wouldn’t it be nice to paint the walls the color I want?

“It is difficult to commit to living where we are, how we are. It is difficult and necessary. In order to make art, we must first make an artful life, a life rich enough and diverse enough to give us fuel. We must strive to see the beauty where we are planted, even if we are planted somewhere that feels very foreign to our nature.”

These words struck me today while reading Julia Cameron’s “The Sound of Paper.” She goes on to talk about how while living in New York she had to “work to connect to the parts of the city that feed my imagination and bring me a sense of richness and diversity instead of mere overcrowding and sameness.”

Perhaps that’s what’s at the heart of my “rootless” issue. I am not connecting to the parts of my city that feed my soul. Instead, I’ve felt very reclusive lately, drawing inward but not finding inspiration and thus blaming my lack of imagination on my environment. Cameron says we become victims if we aren’t willing to connect to the place we live to feed our imagination.

Foggy Morning Walk by Carla Kucinski

Photography has always connected me to places, moments. It helps me see the beauty in everyday life. Maybe I need to see more of my city through my lens or put it down and actually experience it instead of observing it.

“We must, as the elders advise us, bloom where we are planted,” Cameron writes. For if we don’t “our art dries up at the root.”

What an evocative image.

What feeds your imagination? What parts of your city do you connect to that feed your imagination? How do you connect?

By Carla Kucinski

Lane change

I was never certain about what I wanted to be when I grew up (in some ways I’m still working on that) but I was very clear that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to involve a lot of science or math.

Now my fellow feminists, don’t get your fur up, I’m not cultivating that ancient stereotype that girls aren’t good at math and science. I’m just saying that those subjects never made my heart sing. For me, it was always more about words – writing them and speaking them.

I have two dear friends, both terribly accomplished in math and science, who are making dramatic mid-life career changes. They are both walking away from fat salaries to follow their hearts and I am in complete awe of them.

My friend Michelle is a PhD neuroscientist. Seriously? I really don’t even know what that means and I surely never understood what she did at Wake Forest University but I know she ran a lab with mice and did Alzheimer’s research.

The scientist has left the building.

Michelle, 48, watches obscure documentaries on brain function just for fun and her guilty pleasure is playing Candy Crush on Facebook. She would be the first to call herself a nerd. A cute nerd, mind you, but a certifiable nerd.

As I write this, Michelle is in Santa Fe, NM at the Upaya Zen Center finishing up one of her final courses to become a chaplain – a Buddhist chaplain. Yep, the former neuroscientist is walking a different path these days and instead of Dr. Nicolle, she is known at Upaya by her dharma name, Compassionate Cloud.

The chaplain is in.

And I have never seen her look more serene.

I’ve known my friend Rhonda for about eight years. She and her husband, Rowe, rescued me several years ago at a really dark time in my life. They saved me from a deep loneliness with football games, beer, and lots of hugs.

Rhonda, 53, has worked for IBM in their Global Services IT division for several years. I have no idea what she does except that she works mostly from her home office and is on the phone a lot talking to other IT people in New Jersey or India. And those conversations always sounded really boring to me.

$Chalkboard math$

Rhonda’s new computer.

She’s leaving that lucrative job in a few weeks to teach math at Weaver Academy – a magnet school in Greensboro that focuses on performing and visual arts as well as advanced technology.

Rhonda doesn’t have any biological children but she is a pied piper, especially with that most difficult of species – the teenager. I’m not sure how she does it but she’s like the Teen Whisperer. She’d be the first to say that she is not cool and she honestly doesn’t even know how to try to be cool and maybe that’s why kids relate to her – she’s genuine.

Rhonda will soon be walking a new path.

Don’t get me wrong, kids might roll their eyes at her when she does something profoundly lame but it’s usually with a lot of affection. I think her greatest gift with children is that she makes them feel celebrated – as is. I was a teenager a hundred years ago and I don’t recall feeling that way very often.

She led the youth group at our church for years and still refers to that bunch as “my kids” and they never seem to begrudge her hugs or overt mothering.

I know that she will be an awesome teacher.

So Michelle is experimenting more with her heart these days and Rhonda is leaving the corporate world for the classroom.

And one new chaplain plus one new teacher is an equation that is greater than just about anything I can think of on this cold winter’s day.

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Buddha

Words with friends

I’m spending the last afternoon of 2014 doing something I hope to do a lot more of next year – writing.

I’m not making a resolution to write more, mind you, I’m just wishing it so.

Resolutions seem a bit old school these days. Even the sound of the word – resolution – is antiseptic and cold. Besides, couldn’t we all fill our attics – and basements – with empty well intentioned resolutions we’ve abandoned over the years? They’re right over there in the corner with the ThighMaster.

My friend, Amy, had a great status update on Facebook the other day, declaring that she was not making any resolutions but taking a one-word approach to intentions for the new year. Her word for 2015 is health and she hopes to focus on this word every day in some fashion.

Amy is the mother of a two year old so I don’t know how she has time to focus on anything extra but I can already tell by some recent updates that she’s off to a good start.

I’m a big believer in “less is more” so Amy’s post was intriguing to me and I started thinking about what I would want my word to be.

I tried out a few and then very quickly landed on one – kindness.

Just saying it out loud makes me feel better.

By definition

And I love how one word can cover so much ground – kindness to others – all others, yes, I suppose even Republicans and Time Warner Cable representatives. Hey, I didn’t say this would be easy.

I’m talking about real kindness – deeper than just helping the old ladies at my church out to their cars on Sunday after service or letting someone into a long line of traffic.

Kindness to my spouse. That one is pretty easy. I mean you really have to almost try to not be kind to someone named Joy who has a smile that could disarm Darth Varder.

Kindness to myself. Gulp. Somehow I think this one is going to be the toughest. Like most folks, I’m quite accomplished at beating myself up. Ironically, over the years, those beat downs have often been about failed resolutions.

Amy and Jules seem to be on the right path.

I think Amy is on to something here.

And I think kindness has actually been stalking me for awhile. Over a year ago, my wife and I were having a very intense conversation about marriage and what was the most important thing we each wanted in a relationship. We both said, almost simultaneously, kindness.

So it was quite fitting that at our wedding in DC this past May, my best friend, Carla, read one of my favorite poems by Naomi Shihab Nye – “Kindness,” of course. It is an achingly beautiful poem and I hope you will read it at the bottom of this post.

It begins like this: “Before you know what kindness really is you have to lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.”

I have lost many things over the past several years – things that I loved with my whole heart – and I think I do understand more clearly what kindness is.

Before you know what kindness is as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

I think this goes way beyond “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” – this is an intentional way of being in the world and it takes a fair amount of courage to embrace it.

I think I’ve often tried to follow kindness in my life but this year, I’m hoping it will follow me so if I happen to stumble, I can just look over my shoulder and know that I’m still on the right path.

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.