Falling In Love

With Iowa and With This Man

I recently rediscovered a notebook I kept notes in during my first two classes at Cornell College. The first class is intro to philosophy, and the second is Nature Writing. Rich Martin, the professor who taught that class, was a strict sort of fella. But I am grateful to him for this class, if nothing else. He taught Faulkner, and he made us go into the woods to write.

When I came to Iowa I was still sold on being a city-girl of sorts. I didn't feel comfortable going out into nature. And I had every bias against Iowa in the books; that's why I fight so hard against people with those biases now. I thought the one place more lame than Nebraska had to be Iowa, and I was completely prepared to hate it. Now part of this was because I had only had exposure to western Iowa, and part of it was plain ol' ignorance.

It was during Nature Writing, going out into the Nature I could walk to from my dorm (I still didn't own a car) that I fell in love with Iowa. It's all chronicled in this forgotten notebook in blue ink. I was falling in love with a man at the time, not the right man. The torn emotions from that were chronicled there too. And most importantly, I was rediscovering my love for being outdoors. I still felt scared of it then. Now, I find there is no greater feeling of harmony.

I realized reading this notebook that there are different ways I fall in love. I don't think I can really describe the differences to you. Suffice it to say that when I met my husband I fell in love with him within a few weeks. Not the deeper kind of love that would come later on, but still real love. I fell in love with him like I fell in love with Iowa. Completely unexpectedly and completely naturally. I fell in love with him like I fell in love with the outdoors, like I'd been meaning to all my life.

This first year married with him has been crazy in many ways... a lot of ups and downs for us. So much to celebrate, so many blessings, and so much stress trying to establish ourselves in the adult world. I don't say this enough, for reasons I can't quite understand... this was the best year of my life. Being married and getting married were so much more wonderful than I ever let myself imagine. I thought it might somehow ruin love, be too possessive. Instead it has been so, I don't know, intimate.

Yes, intimate. Like sitting under a tree, by a body of water, listening to birds sing. Completely natural. Simple but complex. Transformative and stripping. Wearing away my sharp edges and mellowing me... in toward my center and out toward every corner of the universe.

A Post About Things I Don't Know

[Some of the following I choose not to know, and some I have not yet acquired the means to know.]

1. I don't know how electricity works. I prefer to think it's magic, involving shooting stars and chocolate bars.

2. I don't know who my great-grandparents were, or what they liked to do on Friday nights. Though I expect it involved music, booze, friends, and ensuing laughter. Also, probably sex.

3. I don't know how to play Bridge :( Does somebody want to teach me?

4. Where the fuck is Carmen Sandiego?

5. I never know where I am. I am perpetually lost. Don't ask me for directions, unless you would like to be lost too.

6. I don't know how many roads a man must walk down, before I can call him a man.

7. On a similar note, I also don't know how to paint with all the colors of the wind.

8. I don't know what it's like to be dead. Yet.

9. What's the point of this post? You could fill a book with the things I don't know. Or maybe a library...

Progress Report

Or how I stopped worrying about being cheesy and broke something inside...

I went to an amazing party this weekend. My dear friends Ruby and Marc always throw the best parties. I don't know how they do it, other than with magic. Believe me, I've tried analyzing it, finding patterns because I am good at that; but in the end really Marc&Ruby hold up their parties, because the parties aren't the ones making Ruby&Marc look good (edit because I realized upon rereading that this makes the parties sound bad. I just mean there is a lot of planning that goes on for parties, but in the end it's the people who matter). Here's me gushing... some more.

I can't help it. There is so much beauty in the world, but there is also a considerable amount of mundane. Or at the least, a goodly amount of beauty shabbed over by mundanity. The beauty that some people bring into the world, makes my throat catch and I just want to cry. I love it so much. I love them so much. Isn't it divine for a little while to be more in awe than my usual anxiety&angst allow me to be?

As much as this post is about bragging about my friends, it is also meant to give me some credit where credit is due. It's not that I think I've necessarily become a fantastic conversationalist, or an ideal party guest, but I've come so far in a year. I've come so far in ways I don't know if anyone else can tell. Maybe they can. But for the record, inside I am so much more calm in groups than I've ever been for years. It's not just the first time I've been able to truly enjoy myself, but it's also the least anxious and uncomfortable I have ever allowed myself to be around others.

Not only that, but the one point in the party when I did get overwhelmed I did the right thing. I took care of myself and others. I removed myself from the situation, comforted myself, calmed down, and then took a brave step and reentered the room.

Don't worry guys. It's not that you're scary. For most of you I just feel like I am trying to live up to how amazing you are. Then there were new people, people I'd never met at the party, those are the hardest for me to keep my cool around. Then there were old people, people I haven't talked to in five years, those are stressful for me in a whole other way. I feel abandoned by them, and I feel like they have all these misconceptions of me due to their uncanny ability to ignore five years and still think I must be the person they talked to back then. I think it was the torque from the two different kinds of stress that made me need a break.

This is a large milestone screaming to have its picture taken.

So I did. I took hundreds of pictures of this party.

I feel so revived and revitalized. This is what a good party does to me.

(Picture is of Ruby's luscious fabrics, and shiny bells!)

I Don't Say Much Sometimes

A big breakthrough for me this year was when a good friend asked me "did it ever occur to you that I like listening to you talk about yourself?" I am forever grateful. This question sent me into an epiphany. I can talk about myself and that is subject enough, just as much as I love it when somebody talks about his or her self to me. Questions are very good for me. I almost always will take the tough questions and run with them.

Through the years, starting in first grade I believe, dozens of people have cut right to the chase and directly to the question "Why are you so shy?" I will never forget fifth grade when Samuel Burns, one of the most popular guys, said to me "Hope, why don't you talk more? Everybody likes you when you do."

I'll never forget that, both because I was so amazingly grateful to him (which means if I ever met him today I probably wouldn't have much to say to him) and because I think his honesty hit right at the heart of the common assumption about my shyness. The common assumption being that shyness must be due to fear of being disliked, and I am quite sure that at some level and definitely in some situations that is what it's about for me.

Certainly I think the question of the reasons behind my shyness is more complicated than that, which is why the mere asking of it will result in complete silence. A classic deer-in-headlights response. In my head there are so many things I want to tell you, all of my theories and my shared confusion, that I become silent.

Silence in social situations is deemed shy, and shyness is not often broken down into different categories; mainly, I would guess, because shy people don't talk much about it. Also, our society values vocalization in particular and puts increasingly less merit on quietness as a social good. In particular, I think I surprise some people because I am capable of being well-spoken and yet I am inconsistent about it.

Shyness may have been difficult for other people in my life to understand, but it has been still more difficult for me to figure out. Trying to figure out what my motives and fears are, especially in social situations, is overwhelming. It reaches deep and brings up big questions. Why do I care what people think? And, what would I want them to think of me? I can't possibly even begin to tackle this subject in one post, but I do want to give some outline of a few of the different "shynesses" I experience. Of course, to complicate things further, I quite often experience more than one of these shynesses at the same time.

1) I am shy when I want to learn. Some days, and in some social arenas, I am just so interested that I am completely focused on what others are saying. Too completely focused to even begin to think about what I feel about the subject. I am humbly and truly trying to figure out the ins and outs of the ideas of the people around me. I figure I'll have time to draw my own conclusions on my own later.

This happens a lot at school, where I am inclined to be in the mode of student. Also at work, where I am inclined to be in the mode of worker. I have a hard time switching between student to friend and between worker to coworker.

It is well to know that I am not one who can switch modes very easily, nor on who is in any sort of complete control over which mode I am in. I allow my instincts to determine these sorts of things... sometimes because I trust them, and sometimes because I can't control them because I am so used to trusting them.

Even outside the classroom or workplace I will tend to go into this mode with someone I don't get to see very often, haven't seen in a long time, or have been fascinated by from afar.

This type of shyness is either a sign of respect or a downright compliment. It has taken me a long time to realize how questioning and engaging in conversation can in fact be the best way of both learning things and of showing my interest to others.

2) I am shy when I am not feeling interesting. This can be everything from the typical low-esteem scenarios that are behind many of the most popular shyness theories to a mere feeling of relaxation.

A sure feeling of relaxation and happiness, especially when firm in the realization that I am valid, stirred in with the occasional fact of luck of the draw as far as subjects of any interest coming to me in a given week, can all combine to make me too laid back to contribute.

Something you should know about me, I ever so seldom talk for the sake of talking. I just don't do it. I have to be genuinely interested in what I am saying. I consider my words an offering at your altar.

This leads to problems. It was a good lesson indeed when I learned that failed offerings and rejections, which I have been so long terrified of, are considered standard even in the best of conversations. It is still hard for me to cope with that sometimes.

3) I am shy when I am not interested.

This is a problem, because I am inevitably bored by a good chunk of standard small talk. Though logically speaking I realize that the small talk is a jumping off point to get to the deeper waters, I just can't feel it. It feels so dishonest to sit talking about something that matters very little to either of us.

You should know, I am a person who is almost without fail interested in every subject and most certainly every person I have ever met. So this is the rarest variety of shyness. In fact I consider it my strongest social quality that I am genuinely capable of caring about and being interested in almost every single human being.

Of course, I am a bit of a snob and a tad insecure, which flows nicely into my next and last variety of shyness (at least for the purposes of this post).

4) I am shy when I see the other person as not capable of being supportive of me, or when I don't find myself capable of supporting them. This one gets a little bit more touchy.

There are many people I find to be perfectly good, intelligent, & interesting human beings just approaching life in what I would consider an incompatible way to my current endeavors. There are also people I am genuinely amazed by, and therefore am afraid to varying degrees that I would either be incompatible with their endeavors or incapable of contributing anything of value because they are "so much better than me".

This is the area of shyness that I am working to improve the most. More and more I am becoming a person who pursues friendship with people based on how interesting they seem to me, versus what we could do for each other. This form of shyness is becoming rare, almost extinct, but it may explain how I have treated some of you in the past.

Obviously this is a subject I have obsessed over. To be shy in this society is to be socially handicapped. Some people assume you don't like them if you don't talk to them. Luckily this has not often been the case for me personally.

I have been called a "vocal" quiet person. When asked to explain the people who call me such invariably point out my body language and facial expressions. Indeed I have developed a dynamic range of conveying my emotions in these manners.

I am rather bad at reading other peoples' faces, however. A fact which I think may be close to the main reasons I struggle socially. My subconscious, I am discovering more and more, is significantly more intelligent than my conscious.

I am instinctively very good at reading people and at knowing what range of actions are socially acceptable for me to do and say at any given moment. My logic often steps in and fucks things up. Both because it is very bad at knowing how to deal with the mercurial strength of my instinct, and because it tries to logically come to the same conclusions I have already come to and does a hack job of it.

Just as in writing or art, in conversation (which to me is a great art) the logic needs to not hinder creativity with its watcher-at-the-gate. However, it also needs to know when and how to rein in the instinct and help it adapt to the situation at hand.

Take for instance this post. My instincts know which words to string together, my logic knows where to separate ideas by punctuation or spaces. If they work together I do great. Unfortunately, my logic often fails at figuring out its end of the deal or gives in to letting the instinct become more important.

Damn. I've certainly gone on long enough.