Pay It Forward

Dharma Talk week of 1/28

On Monday I had 3 different friends tell me how they were involved in "Pay-it-forward" situations.  One friend got to the front of a line and realized she had forgotten her wallet.  The people behind her paid for her and insisted that she just "pay it forward."  Another friend was behind a woman in line who couldn't pay for her coffee and she stepped in and bought the woman's cup-o-joe, asking her only to "pay it forward."  Another friend of mine witnessed a similar event between two strangers.

Last week I was talking about actions speaking louder than words.  I think this piggy-backs on that idea in a very real way.  New York City is often described as being alive, and if you live her you know that you feel like you are part of a bigger organism.  And it's because of US, because WE are here making things feel that way.  Just how when you hurt your foot you are likely to experience some effects in the knee and hip, what we do affects each other. 

The idea that we are able to pay anything forward to one another implies that we owe each other something.  And we do all believe this to be true in one way or another.  Whether you believe that we owe each other respect and simple kindness, or whether you believe that our government should provide us with certain resources, you believe something is owed to you by other humans.  It's the only way we can have any code of morals and ethics at all.  But we might not always have money or objects to share.  So what's our currency?

I believe it's to do with the heart.  The heart can be the source of all your wealth, if you choose.  Whether you can lend a hand, an ear, or a dollar to someone, the intention to give always comes from the same place.  Make the decision to be rich, beautiful souls.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Dharma talk week of 1/21/13

Actions speak louder than words.  Nobody knows your soul or can read your mind.  They can only make inferences based on what they see you do.  My friend Saul sent me a hilarious article that outlines a few ideas about why we stay trapped in the quicksand of inaction.  Here's a quote:

"Who you are on the inside is everything - the guy who built a house for his family from scratch did it because of who he was inside.  every bad thing you've ever done has started with a bad impulse ricocheting around inside your skull until you had to act on it.  Every good thing you've done is the same.  'Who you are inside' is the metaphorical dirt from which your fruit grows.  But here's what everyone needs to know and what many can't accept. 'You' are nothing but the fruit.  Nobody cares about your dirt.  'Who you are inside' is meaningless aside from what it produces for other people."

 The way this idea manifests in the asana, the posture, practice is by focusing on the actions of the poses.  You cannot be "Down Dog."  Shapes are abstractions; they don't exist until they are put into a piece of matter, like your body.  But you can feel the action of your thigh muscles working, you can feel the action of your chest pressing back in space, you can feel the action of the fingers spreading on the floor.  The result is something that we agree to call "Down Dog," but in reality it is the culmination of the action taken in your body.

Actions garner results.  In an asana class the actions of the body create yoga poses which in turn make your body feel stronger, more flexible, and appear leaner.  In your life, your actions will lead to different results.

Do the strength of your heart and the flexibility of your mind get exercised in the world in such a way that anyone could know you are a yogi? Stop wasting your time and energy on actions that belie who you are. Think about a quality you possess that you are really proud of.  Then name a way this has manifested in the world in the past, and set a goal to grow that quality in the future.  Give yourself a deadline, and stick to it.

Off you go!

Ready for Anything

Dharma Talk for the week of 1/14

My acting teacher Maria often asks us to be "ready for anything."  Ready to jump, ready to fall. Ready to give, ready to receive.  Ready for joy, ready for sorrow.  Ready for sun, ready for rain.

But this type of "readiness" isn't something you can prepare for.  This isn't like when you're going camping and prepare out the wazoo for every possible circumstance.  In fact, over-preparation is the complete opposite of acceptance.  What is really beautiful about this idea is that it requires a certain amount of surrender.  The rigid inability to let yourself be re-routed is what normally will lead you to feeling stuck in relationships/jobs/addictions/pain.

Being ready for anything is easier than it sounds.  It only requires the acceptance of one simple truth: YOU are not the experience you are having.  YOU are not your relationship with your boyfriend.  YOU are not your job.  YOU are not your biggest fear.  You are more.  Whether you are succeeding or being challenged, you still get to be you!  So stop idealizing one person, one path, one way of being - it leaves you with fewer options and makes life a lot more boring.  Be ready for anything.  The winding roads of circumstance can never define you, but if you let them guide you, the world might just look a little more colorful, and you might just feel a little more secure.

Becoming the Sun

Dharma Talk

Week of 1/7/13

The way we relate to the ground makes a big difference in the way we feel.  Lying on your back feels different than lying on your stomach.  Standing on one leg feels different than standing on two.  Standing on your hands feels different than sitting on your bottom.

Why?

Because the relationship you have to gravity is the closest relationship you can have to your own body.  It is so completely ingrained in us that we don't even notice it.  We are, without consent, bound to the earth because of her gravity.  And the earth is bound to the sun because of his gravity.

All pieces of matter have gravity…even us.  What orbits you?  What will you pull to you?  What would you like to attract?  Can you accept the role of being the sun of your own solar system?

You are brilliant, magnetic, a source of life for others.  Attract.

Resolve to Resolve

Hey there,

So I've made it a resolution to blog my dharma talk each week.  For those of you who don't know, in the yoga-class context a dharma talk is a short talk of meaning or purpose given at the beginning of class. It usually serves as a thematic anchor for the rest of the class.  I've found that teaching helps me clarify my thoughts, so I'll probably wait until the end of the week to summarize all I've learned.  Plus, I don't want to ruin any surprises for the people planning to come to my class during the week :)

So, here goes, for the week of 1/1/13:

RESOLVE TO RESOLVE

Lots of people have New Year's resolutions.  I'm struck by the two different definitions of the word "resolve."  To have resolve is to have clear focus and dedication toward an action or ideal.  To resolve something is to make it better, to add peace where it did not exist before.  With that in mind, I have adopted the following mantra:

"I resolve to resolve."

Everyone has conflict.  On a daily basis we are faced with small and large things that make us feel agitated.  Whether this dis-ease rests within yourself or in relationships with others, there's normally something that needs to be resolved.  I think we would benefit from assuring that any resolution we make also resolves something for us.  Resolve to resolve.

How do we do it?  I think it takes listening.  It's too easy to be right all the time.  It's too easy to surround ourselves only with people who support our opinions as fact.  We have GOT to, as a community, a nation, a species, start resolving to resolve.  We've got to compromise, and love each other even when we disagree.  I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for yourself, but as you do, ask yourself what it is you are resolving by doing so.

Let's resolve to resolve.  Happy New Year, sweet souls,
April

Total Eclipse of the Heart

So this morning there was a partial lunar eclipse.  What happens during a lunar eclipse is that the sun, the moon, and the earth are aligned so that the shadow of the earth is cast upon the moon.  This blocks out some of the moon, making it look like part of the moon has disappeared.  Lots of ancient cultures have folklore about various animals eating the moon, and would even do things like hurl curses and sticks at the sky to try and prevent the animal from its nighttime snack. 

This makes me think about some things.

The earth is the thing casting the actual darkness on the moon.  What's funny about the ancient traditions of blaming an outside source for the darkness of the moon, is that it is indeed our home planet hiding the light.  So it's the earth's own doing that it can't see the light of the moon - it's standing in its own way…ahem…sound familiar to anyone?  In the astrological context, it is said that this is a representation of material things standing in the way of true knowledge.  Just as if the earth were aligned in a slightly different way we could see the entire moon, if our perspective were able to shift just the tiniest bit then greater truth would be illuminated for us.

Another thought.  The earth isn't BAD for casting a shadow on the moon.  How in the world could that be so?  The earth isn't doing anything other than being exactly where it is, without any preconception or control.  In fact, it has absolutely no choice at all about where it is - there are forces far beyond its reach that hold it into its relationship with the sun and the moon.  And where it is, it casts a shadow on the moon.  There will always be somebody casting their shadow on you.  It is very important to remember that they are not doing so because they are bad.  They are being exactly where they are, which has nothing to do with you.  And whether or not you know it, you are casting your shadow on somebody else.  It is the nature of being pieces of matter.  There will be light.  Sometimes we will block it, sometimes it will be blocked from us.  But it's still there.  The matter in the way of it isn't good or bad, it's just being in the only place it can possibly be at a given moment.

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Eclipses tend to be a time of illumination.  Things that were blocked from view become clear and simple.  I hope this is the case for you. 

Emocean

The intensity of our emotions can sometimes be confusing.  Our feelings are capable of washing over us like an ocean, giving us the impression that we are helplessly drowning in the intensity of our own being.  Whether this sea is made of drops of romance, sorrow, elation, or rage, its storms are formidable, capable of sending the most seasoned captains off course.

But what if we could measure the intensity of our emotions the same way we measure the intensity of sugar in our foods?  What if there were some sort of emotional nutrition facts that could show us how many calories of feeling we were experiencing?  What if managing the intensity of our emotions could be as simple as calorie counting?

While an actual measurement of our emotional intensity may never be possible, perhaps it is still possible for us to become the Poseidon of our own “Emocean.”  Let’s liken our feelings to sugar for a moment.  Any doctor will tell you that in moderation, sugar is not harmful to your body.  It’s when we go overboard that we start to see the negative impacts of our consumption.  So let’s begin to view intense emotions like a big huge slice of cake: an indulgence.  Indulgences are not bad!  But they must be moderated. 

One of the most wonderful things about the human experience is being caught up in our feelings.  Our hearts are capable of great power, and we ought to succumb to them from time to time.  But we must be aware that we are allowing this consumption to take place, just as we are aware when we are having one slice of cake too many.  Be intense, but never think you are helpless against the waves of your own creation.  Wield your trident, Poseidon, love the storm or love the calm, but never think you are without choice.

The Plight of an Open Heart

The plight of an open heart is that everyone can see it.  Like a moth to the flame, lonesome wanderers stumbling through the dark will be drawn to you.  Be ready. 

The plight of an open heart is that everyone will want it.  They will feed off of you and never be able to replenish what you are willing to give.  Be ready.

The plight of an open heart is that it desires to give.  And you will have a hard time stopping.  Be ready.

The plight of an open heart is that you stand to gain everything.  But you have to lose it all first.

I sound like Chicken Soup for the Soul and it makes me want to vomit.  And then vomit again because I actually mean all of it.

In the Company of Sorrow

I know a lot of people who have been having a rough time lately.  I've got a couple things to share that I hope might help you.  One of the things the yogic teachings ask of us is to learn how to "be with what is."  I think that this presents a very interesting idea: namely, that you are not defined by the experience you are having. 

You are not an emotion.  You are not a thought.  You are not a hand or a foot or a movement or a desire.  You are always more than all of these things combined.

In the experience of being alive we can sometimes feel like we are drowning in circumstance; like we are submerged in the sea of emotion, or maybe clutching to an ideal that keeps us stuck.  When this happens, can we remember:

You cannot be happy.  You cannot be sad.  Because you are always more than.  Let's instead think of being in the company of joy.  Or in the company of sorrow.  But it will never define you.  Because you are bigger than anything that can happen to you or around you.  When we think of being in the company of experience we can see the space between ourselves and events, between ourselves and intensity, between ourselves and success, between ourselves and loss.

We get to have the experiences, not the other way around.  Because we are infinite, and long outlive the brief moments of any event.

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I am in the company of sorrow, whose presence is affecting and strong.  I try to be good company.  I listen to it, I give it the chance to express itself, I offer it my point of view when it asks, and even allow it to try and engulf me when it gets petty and stubborn.  Because I am burning a ferocious and punishing love that won't be ignored.  So I will be with it.  I will let it rage all it wants until it exhausts itself and dies, leaving whatever wreckage and scars it wants.  Because none of it will define me.  I am always more.

My heart is not broken.  It works very well.

Footprints of Angels

In his book The Inner Tradition of Yoga, Michael Stone discusses how yoga is the tool by which we are attempting to find equilibrium in our imbalanced selves while existing in a world inherently out of balance. Since starting my yoga teacher training I have certainly begun to find more balance, but I have not been so focused on the whole "world out of balance" part. I continue on my quest to develop my most balanced self, but I am reminded today to remember the rest of the framework in which I live. I have been studying dutifully how to expand the universe of me, but I now have to ask myself "In relation to what?"

Today the imbalance of the world was demonstrated by the hundreds of people who died in a stampede in Cambodia. I cannot think of a more gruesome and eye-opening example of the destructive capabilities of mankind. Hundreds of people were trampled to death by the feet of neighbors and peers. Feet that once danced, feet that dug themselves into wet sand, feet that tiptoed past the doors of sleeping children took lives with manic and thoughtless steps. We have spent centuries evolving our war weapons, but all of it is completely unnecessary; we do not require any tools beyond our own limbs.

Nobody knows what started the stampede.


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So, to this context of consciousness called 'life': I see you, and recognize you, and thank you for everything you are. As you continue to expand and change, so will I. I can leave the footprints, but I can't create the soil - I need you for that.

If you judge, investigate.

Far Away.

I have said it before: if we abolish the idea that such a place exists, we could end war, inequality, and hatred. But the story which makes me revisit this theory has little to do with physical place. What if this also applies to the quality of our minds?

In this article the lamentable stories are told of mentally ill Chinese citizens and the victims of their violent crimes. Many of the cases are those of untreated or ignored schizophrenia resulting in violent acts against children and the elderly. In the case of Yang Jiaqin, he has received only one month of treatment in the past five years despite obvious signs of schizophrenia. It should not have been surprising when he took a butcher knife and roamed around his home village slashing anyone he came across, including a group of children coming home from school and an elderly couple chopping wood.

It is so easy to make space between ourselves and these instances. In fact, it is our instinct to do so in order that we be able to continue on our way without being damaged. If we absorbed every terrible thing we came across we would all suffer from severe and constant heartbreak. In order to even survive reading articles like this, we must create a little air between ourselves and traumatic events described. However, if we carry this to excess then we enter the realm of judgment and the assumption that such things could never happen to us. So is this the key to curing the mind of judgment?

Winston Churchill said "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." If we embrace our inner swine, then it will never have to prove to us that it exists. Accepting that insanity, misbehavior, and ignorance are right around the corner levels the playing field between ourselves and the recipients of our scrutiny.

Haha, I feel like I go through all this work to arrive at very obvious conclusions. I suppose that's part of the reality of definitions existing before words.

Autumn Makes Me Sing

"Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not, and never again will be; what is is change." -Edwin Way Teale

Autumn has always felt very enchanting to me. I die for all things pumpkin flavored, I love deep saturated colors like maroon and teal, and I never met a scarf I didn't like. As a child I loved taking walks with my mother and picking up acorns (I picked up 100 of them for a project in kindergarten) and big fallen leaves, though few of them actually change color in my hometown of Houston. The sun always seems to multiply in size and adopt a slightly more orange hue, as if to mirror the jack-o-lanterns grimacing on our stoops. And let's not forget the harvest moon, who knowingly glows over the winds of change and falling leaves. She makes her life out of change and she gently attempts to shed light for we who do not accept transition quite as gracefully.

Perhaps it is the new chill in the air, maybe it is the dichotomy of our surfeited pantries against the barren tree limbs, or it could be the ominous threat of the inevitable winter, but there is something uniquely nostalgic and tender about this season. We are faced with having to simultaneously accept ends and beginnings, whether or not we are ready.

How befitting that this is the season in which we celebrate Halloween! It makes perfect sense that this would be the season during which we would fear the return of dead spirits. Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, I'll bet you experience the ghosts of your memories in the fall. I find it both intriguing and wonderful that we come to terms with the heartache of change by adopting a new identity altogether. Theatre comes from ancient rituals that involve the worshipers becoming possessed by the spirits around them. Anyone who has been alone in an empty theatre knows how haunted it feels - the spirits of all the characters who have ever lived in that space are still there, waiting to be realized once again through the body of a performer. Ask your actor friends, and if they are anything like me then they will tell you that characters stay with them for a while after a show has closed. The autumn is like this on a larger scale. We are changing, like it or not, with the leaves and the winds and the earth - for better or worse is always yet to be seen.

Now all I want to do is watch Chocolat.

"Gold's father is dirt, yet it regards itself as noble."

So all my horoscopes lately keep talking about words and how now is a good time for me to amp up my verbal communications. The only thing is....I have to have something to say first!

In my yoga teacher training one of our teachers has a habit of asking us questions like "Is yoga a technique or a skill?" or "Are we becoming stronger or more powerful?" The first day we had him I felt intimidated by him, and jarred by the starkness of his questions and his penetrating stare which would relent only after one of us choked out an answer (which usually sounded more like a question). However, after four classes in a row with him I have become very fond of this pedagogical approach. Why? Because it forces us to put words to the ideas we felt we were drowning in. Also, because we felt lost, we were then able to feel found. This makes sense coming from a man who constantly discusses the idea of a "Language of Opposites." It also made me trust him because he led us somewhere very specific and concrete after what seemed like an eternity of trick questions and abstract concepts.

So that's an interesting way to live, no? And what an amazing amount of faith it takes! To be comfortable being lost, believing that one day you will arrive at a clearing in the woods, to have complete credence that someone is leading you, despite your ignorance as to where. Of course this cannot be the only principle by which one lives if they hope to accomplish certain goals, but in the times when I feel like I'm metaphorically running in circles while wearing heels and tripping over road blocks after I've already run the wrong way into a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night without my cellphone or any money....it's nice to think there's a pot of gold waiting somewhere (PS - I've noticed the pots of gold rarely tend to wait on the other side of something as lovely as a rainbow, but more like on the other side of a tight rope suspended over a pit of angry alligators).

My acting mentor often says "Invite disaster!" I'm not sure it needs an invitation, but like a good hostess, I will always be ready to entertain it.

Representation

So it is election time, which has me thinking a lot about how we choose to represent ourselves. If anybody has the job of representing more people than they possibly ever could, it has to be the leader of a nation.

President Obama won many of us over because we felt that he could represent more of us than his predecessors and competitors. This may be true, but of course there will always be those who feel that they are not being emblamatized well or even at all. Right now the Sikh community in America is urging President Obama to reconsider his decision to cancel a trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India. The president made his decision after questions were raised about how he would cover his head when entering the center. He has spent years trying to disassociate himself from being representative of Muslims and the mere thought of images circulating of him with his head covered was probably enough to give his advisors heart attacks. (Sikhs are not Muslim by the way, but rather practice a faith which draws from Hindu and Islamic beliefs)

Lying crumpled on a table, a piece of cloth has no meaning. But swaddle a baby in it, put a picnic on top of it, drape it over a piece of artwork, a bed, or a table, wrap it around your head...and suddenly the cloth takes on meaning. After performing any of these functions, the cloth is still the cloth. It is you that has changed. I think this is beautiful, but at the same time we have to be careful of situations like this. Why does a piece of cloth have the power to change a person's mind? Whatever power we give to an object, it still has the possibility of being nothing more than the piece of crumpled cloth.

Matters of state aside, we represent one another in very personal ways. Whether we mean to or not, we represent our families, our teachers, our mentors, our bosses, our hometowns, our choices; in fact, we ourselves are representations of every moment that has ever come before. I certainly know that I tear up any time one of my parents or mentors looks at me and tells me "I am so proud of you." They have done so much right by me, and it makes me extremely happy to know that they feel I am doing the same for them. In this way we represent one another.

I think I still have Genet on the brain.

Poor Lonely Blog

Dear Blog,

Again I have to apologize for neglecting you. This is so typically me - I get really excited about something...then it fizzles out. Blog, I started you because I felt that I wasn't using my mind enough, and you helped me stay opinionated and articulate. Thanks! It just turns out that over the past month or so I've had PLENTY going on to keep my mind busy.

I've been working on a project with a director I really love, and who also happens to be absolutely out of her mind. Her plan is to have 4 installments of "open rehearsals" throughout a year of her interpretation of Jean Genet's The Maids. I love Genet and love this play and have been helping her do research for a few months now. This 1st installment is turning out to be more of an art instillation than a theatre piece, and I love it. I'm having a hard time letting go though...I mean I know this is meant to be a rehearsal, and completely imperfect in nature, but the performer in me just hates that. I suppose I'll just have to stay in the moment with it. After the 4 installments she will either use our exploration to create a finished piece or she will use it as research for a staging of the complete text, or maybe she won't do anything with it at all. Who knows!

My lovely blog, I am also starting my yoga teacher training program this upcoming weekend, and I am VERY excited about it! I found out that the director of the program is actually from Port Washington, where I used to live, and that we share Lisa Bondy from Om Sweet Om as our most influential yoga teacher! She is also a performer and studied Suzuki and Viewpoints with the Siti Company for 3 years. It really is a small world!

I will have to be doing written assignments for my training, and I will try and put all of those assignments up here. I'll spare you any that I think are either poorly written or boring.

Talk to you later!
April

Unsex me here

I am fascinated by this article which I read the other morning. From reading it I learned that it is extremely common in Afghanistan for parents to dress their little girls as boys. They do this for any number of reasons - to increase social status, to have another family member who can work, to have help running errands. It is extremely interesting, educational, and comes with pictures! Everybody should read it.

In Afghanistan it is shameful and neighbors pity you if you have only daughters. It is also thought that women can control what gender their baby is going to be - thus putting the mothers in danger of abuse after giving birth to girls. It seems also that the women who have a history of dressing as boys in their youth are the women who are able to make large career steps. For instance, a female member of Parliament dressed as a boy until it was time for her to marry. She and her husband had their third daughter do the same. They asked her, "Do you want to bicycle and swim and do all the things boys do? Do you want to be like Daddy?" The little girl did not hesitate to say "Yes!"

I feel like I should be outright disgusted and outraged by the cross-dressing phenomen which seems to have swept Afghanistan, but I find it amazing. The origin of the tradition makes complete sense to me, but it is so far outside my world experience that I would never even think of it happening. My impression of women cross-dressing out of desperation is that it happens in fictional stories which deal with how "backwards" things were a long time ago. Think Mulan or the Shakespearean heroines Viola in The Twelfth Night or Rosalind in As You Like It. It would never occur to me that a woman today would have to dress as a man to acheive anything...gender is not something I consider when I contemplate my own successes or failures.

"Gratitude is the memory of the heart"

I love reading the news and knowing what is going on in the big wide world, but a lot of the time I find myself being very grateful that I'm me and not the people in whatever article I'm reading (however condescending that may sound). I'm not sure how to reconcile the joy of the world with all of the terrible tragedy that befalls some of us. There are so many victims of hatred: those abused by church figures, war victims, citizens wrongly imprisoned. Yogic philosophy would remind me that the light cannot exist without the darkness and that truly it is all one in the same anyway, but my undeveloped mind can't quite wrap itself around that just yet.

Today I find myself being extremely grateful for several things. Namely:

-Having had a happy childhood free of abuse, knowledge of war, hunger, and lonliness
-Having never been accused of a crime I did not commit (on a large or small scale)
-Having a life which allows me to be educated, joyous, and (relatively) calm
-Having a healthy body

Because their words had forked no lightning...

Dear Blog,

I must apologize for having neglected you the past couple weeks. Sometimes my thoughts get all jumbled up together and I have a hard time paying attention to any of them long enough to make sense of them. I then go into "survival mode" and just try and get through the operations of each day the best I can, without any energy or will to decompress at the end of it all.

Lyall is gone, it's always hard when he goes and it always kind of zaps a little energy from my soul and takes a bit of time to recover. Getting over that little bit of heartbreak kept me from you as well dear blog.

My mind has been blown by a lot of new philosophy lately, and its still marinating for the time being. A lot of it has to do with acceptance, judgment, and freedom.

I have recently begun babysitting one of my favorite human beings, Lucy Frances DesRochers (who at the tiny age of 2 already has her own blog chronicling her adventures and her artwork). She is a fantastic and unique child, but she has the very common childhood habit of abhorring the idea of taking a nap. The poor child screamed like someone was murdering her for 3 minutes before falling asleep the other day. I couldn't help but think, "If someone were begging me to go to sleep, I would have absolutely NO problem with it." And then I thought about it and realized, though the wailing is rather traumatizing to listen to, there is something so wonderful about the railing against missing a single second of consciousness, the need to rage rage against the dying of the light.

And what a powerful message that is. I know the poem by Dylan Thomas refers to death, but if we view every moment of life as its own being, the meaning of light changes. With every moment of consciousness we have the ability to sink into darkness, to allow our light to dwindle or extinguish. Do we actually get more tired with age, or do we just accept darkness more readily?

Choose light, choose life, choose consciousness. It's so simple, yet so hard to actually achieve. I guess the point is that we try though, right?

At any rate, Blog, I promise to not neglect you anymore. Seems like in the next few months I will have lots to think about and write about and I think you're worth sharing it with.

Yours,
April

yup

Today is my 23rd birthday.

44%

So I saw this on my friend Ashley's blog and was surprised at how much I've done - and at all the things I definitely could've done and haven't.

Bold what you have done:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

I know that my blog is filled with a lot of criticisms, but I love the world and being alive in it. There is so much to see and know, and though I have no idea why having done any of the things in bold above could possibly be important, they just are. I don't know ultimately why it is important that anyone acheive anything, but I do know that people are proud of themselves when they do.

At first after doing this I thought "I've only done 44% of these things." (Immediately I always go to the very Virgoan place of needing to efficiently complete lists and tasks.) Then I thought, well hang on April, you know there are tons of things you have done that aren't even on this list.

No matter what percentage of items you have completed on any given list, you have always lived 100% of your life. Cool.