Hoarded Ordinaries

Yesterday morning I asked my parents to drop me off early at the airport in Columbus, Ohio so I could catch up with some online teaching tasks while waiting to fly back to New England. Whereas you have to pay to connect to the wireless network at Boston’s Logan Airport, the wifi at Port Columbus is free. After spending a couple hours surfing the online waves at Wai-Fai Beach, I caught up with my students’ Discussion Board posts and turned off my laptop just in time to board my flight. Goodbye, Columbus; hello, New England.

Hello New England indeed. I’d planned to return to Boston on Sunday afternoon so I’d be here (and back in touch with my own wifi connection) in time for Monday morning, when a new week’s worth of online assignments goes live. Monday morning is when I post new Discussion Board forums, check that my Lecture Notes and Discussion Questions have posted, and download response papers from the previous week. In other words, Monday morning is when both my online students and I are gearing up for a new week, and doing that via dial-up is slow going.

Flying during a Monday morning snowstorm can be slow going, too, so I arrived back in Boston yesterday afternoon in the nick of time, before the sky starting dropping nearly a foot of snow around midnight. Yesterday morning was cold and clear in Columbus; yesterday afternoon was similar here in Newton. Last night as J and I walked the dogs and then later walked to and from dinner at our favorite Chinese noodle house, the streets and sidewalks were bare after nearly a week of unseasonably mild weather. “Take one long, last look at the ground before tonight,” I told J, “because we won’t see it tomorrow.

And true to forecast, this is what we woke up to.

Coming home to New England right before a big winter storm means you can hunker down with your own laptop, Internet connection, and cup of cocoa while the snow accumulates in heavy clumps. I walked Reggie this morning like usual but haven’t been anywhere since. The downside of teaching online is you have to take your laptop (and rely on molasses-slow dial-up Internet access) when you visit family for the weekend; the upside of teaching online is you can stay at home on a snowy day as long as the power holds and the Internet doesn’t die.

For those of you who don’t have loads of snow of your own, here’s a photo set where you can get your (virtual) fill. Enjoy!

Yesterday while I was in New Hampshire casting my vote in the primary there, the wireless router here at J’s house died a sudden and dramatic death. As a result, I’ve been largely out of the online loop…and since I’m flying to Ohio to visit family tomorrow afternoon, I’ll continue to be largely offline through the weekend, keeping in touch with my online classes but not doing much blogging via a slow-as-molasses dialup connection at my parents’ house.

So, while I’m out of the Internet loop for the next handful of days, here’s a quick picture from a recent Bruins game to show that Real Men do indeed change diapers, with several men’s rooms at Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden (home to both the Bruins and Celtics) being equipped with changing tables. I guess fatherhood, like both hockey and basketball, is a contact sport.

While I’m gone, feel free to avail yourself of this handy “Random” link to dip into my archives. Even I sometimes find hidden gems I’d forgotten about there.

Yesterday was my birthday, so here is the requisite shot of Friday night’s celebration: Girls’ Night Out at Solea in Waltham. In past years, I’ve shared similar table-top shots; last year I was sick on my birthday, so the celebration felt anticlimactic. This year, instead of trying to figure out what I want from the proverbial “rest of my life,” I’ve decided to reflect on what I am grateful to already have. Instead of seeing the occasion of my birthday as an opportunity to focus on what’s wrong and needs to be fixed, I’ve decided to focus on what right in my life and needs to be continued.

So in the spirit of tapas–little dishes that whet the appetite and make for a meal when combined–here are three little things I did as a 38-year-old that I want to continue now that I’m a day over 39.

This past year I’ve made a more serious effort to meditate with others. During the spring and summer, I started practicing with the Open Meadow Zen Group, and recently I’ve been making an effort to sign up for talks and interviews at the Cambridge Zen Center. After having led a Zen group of my own in New Hampshire–and after seeing that group fold–I was a bit shy about climbing back into the “sangha saddle” again. But now that I’ve taken baby steps back toward doing formal meditation more regularly with others, I’m wondering why I insisted on practicing on my own for so long. Meditating at home on one’s own is an important part of practice, but I find meditating with others infinitely more powerful.

This past year, I’ve made a more serious effort to see my life–not simply meditation–as being my spiritual practice. Instead of limiting my practice to what I do on a meditation cushion, I’ve been trying to pay closer attention no matter what I’m doing. That means spending a lot of time doing “driving meditation” during my weekly trips between New Hampshire and Massachusetts: instead letting myself zone out while I’m driving, I’ve been trying to follow my breath as I drive, paying close attention to the sensation of my hands on the wheel while I watch other cars with alert concentration. If sitting upright on a meditation cushion qualifies as “practice,” why can’t sitting upright in the driver’s seat?

This past year, I stayed consistently debt-free and saved money instead of digging out from debt. In the past, I’ve relied upon credit cards to fund my under-employed summer months, which has meant I’ve spent my fall semesters paying off debt. This past year, I did a better job managing my finances (and I taught more) throughout the summer, so the money I made during an extra-busy fall semester went toward savings rather than debt. Without feeling like I’ve scrimped, I’ve felt more financially “settled” this past year, paying off my credit card balances every month (even if that meant dipping into savings over the summer) and being more diligent about saving for next summer and beyond. After having spent years in a marriage where we couldn’t make ends meet on a six-figure salary, I love the feeling of living within my means (and enjoying myself) on much less.

So there you have it: three things I feel I did right this year that I want to continue. They aren’t exactly New Year’s Resolutions since they’re things I’ve already started doing; instead, we might call them Birthday Retro-lutions, nibbles of wisdom I recognize as tasty in retrospect that I’d like to continue sampling as I continue to creep toward 4-0.

In a previous lifetime when I first moved to New England, my ex-husband and I went to First Night several years in a row. Neither one of us was much into the party scene, so the thought of a large, largely alcohol-free, G-rated pedestrian party appealed to us. And when we lived underground in Beacon Hill, First Night was a party that happened almost literally on our doorstep, so it was only natural we’d partake.

As years passed, though, my ex-husband and I stopped attending First Night. One year, the weather was too cold; another year, we were invited to a private party. And when we moved into the Cambridge Zen Center, we (or make that I) started doing Midnight Practice on New Year’s Eve: an even more alcohol-free, G-rated way, and significantly warmer way to ring in the New Year.

First my ex-husband and I moved into the Zen Center, then we moved further away from the city, then we moved out of the state entirely. All of these moves–individual pulses in the passage of time–marked incremental steps away from Boston, away from the pedestrian party that is First Night, and closer to the isolated ideal of individual citizens in front of TVs watching other people in far-off cities celebrating for them.

I remember New Year’s Eve 2000, when the world feared the computer glitch of Y2K would bring civilization (or at least our machines) to a screeching halt. My ex-husband and I lived in a house in Hillsboro, NH even though he was still working (and thus commuting to and from) Boston. Our neighbors in Hillsboro were far-flung strangers, and I was lonely living an entire state away from any of my friends.

On New Year’s Eve 2000, my ex-husband and I stayed in rather than driving a half-hour or more to the nearest big city; because of Y2K, he had to stay huddled in front of his computer screen, checking that the code he oversaw didn’t succumb to bugs. Upstairs, I watched TV alone, convinced I needed to stay awake to see in the New Year, even if alone.  At midnight, I went downstairs to my ex’s basement office, where he barely looked up from his screen to acknowledge me.

This New Year’s Eve, J and I rode the T into Boston for an afternoon Bruins game. Afternoon hockey games are popular with families, and we sat surrounded by parents with children in a section that was largely alcohol-free and G-rated. “At least he’s not swearing,” one usher remarked to no one in particular after asking a particularly rambunctious fan to sit down. “Although I don’t have kids,” J remarked, “I like the calm, chaos-free atmosphere of family events.”

After spending our afternoon rooting for the Bruins, J and I headed home to tuck in our own “children”: in a house with three dogs and nine cats, you can’t party late after an afternoon game. Thus this year’s taste of First Night was necessarily pedestrian and brief as we passed through Boston Common on our way to catch the T at Copley Square: a detour to avoid post-game crowds that afforded a passing glimpse of ice sculptures and party-prep before dark.

On the T ride home, J and I were surrounded by parents shepherding small flocks of face-painted children home by bedtime: definitely G-rated. We ourselves got home not long after dark, in time to let the dogs out, fix and eat dinner, and get sleepy before folks on TV counted down the seconds to a New Year.

This year, eight years after that lonely Y2K in a previous lifetime, I’m realizing a happy New Year has nothing to do with whether to go out or stay in. Regardless of when you get home or who counts down the seconds to New Year, are you with the ones you love, human or otherwise? All those years ago, all I wanted was a sense of connection: when I walk into a room on New Year’s Eve or otherwise, will you acknowledge me? This year, heading home before dark and leaving First Night to revelers more rambunctious than I was a perfectly appropriate way to mark the passage of time that is a New Near.

This is my belated submission for this past week’s Photo Friday theme, Passage of Time. I started this post several days ago, but appropriately enough it took some…time…passing before I got around to finishing it.