Being yourself

diving into sustainability

For a long while now, I have dreamt of living in a sustainable manner -- a green home that generates it's own electricity, rain water collection, ventilation driven cooling, natural materials used for construction, composting, growing my own vegetables, buying organic, supporting local businesses, using green transport, on and on. While, several parts of life are driven by more sustainable choices, I certainly don't live in a green home. However, the quest is on.

In my search, I came across Sustainable Ballard, a local organization trying to turn the Seattle, Ballard neighborhood into a sustainable one, making it a blueprint for every other neighborhood in the US. I started wondering how I could become a part of this organization, meet other like-minded people, transform my lifestyle and start teaching about sustainability to the youth at PSCS. I spent most of the summer tossing around emails, nothing really coming of it all. However, I believe that when you put energy into something you believe in, it will begin to manifest. And, so it has. In December, I met with a group of parents and other folks interested in sustainability education in schools to talk about creating a sustainability curriculum. We meet on a monthly basis, however a smaller group, including myself, a very enthusiastic parent and one of my students, are meeting every week to dig deep into developing the curriculum.

I am excited -- it means I will learn more about a way of living that is important to me and what's more I get to do it with a student of mine, in the process of developing something that hopefully many will learn from.

january resolution

Keeping with my life theme of creating special occassions when I feel like it, I never made any New Year's resolutions. I make resolutions all the time just not when I am 'supposed to'. My friend Shannon has inspired me once again to do something. She is trying to write on her blog every day! I think that's monumental. I am inspired to write at least once a week. This is going to be a big year for us and I would love to have a record of it in the form of my weekly ramblings. So, here's to write on the blog!

saddam's hanging

I felt very disturbed by Saddam's hanging. Having known all the atrocities he inflected, I still found it barbaric and hateful for him to have been hung. It felt like slapping somone back who has slapped you -- rarely does that kind of action beget longterm justice. Isn't justice about living a just and harmonious life? Where is the harmony in killing? While we cannot control other people's actions and must defend our survival, killing them while not defending ourselves physically in the moment seems like a meditated act of violence much like the other person's act of violence. Perhaps, I am being too Gandhian but I know I had a viscerally repulsive feeling in my stomach when I heard of Saddam's hanging.

old hindi music

Okay, I had to break the pattern of starting every post with "a new .."! I have been listening to a lot of old Hindi music lately -- it must have something with connecting with your roots. I have always enjoyed old Hindi music. I imagine that it does for me what favorite music does to a lot of people -- it evokes the deepest emotions within me, connects me to my core being -- a space that makes me both very comfortable and very naked at the same time, it makes me nostalgic and it leaves me speechless. In particular, I appreciate the lyrics of old Hindi music -- most of them are poetic and speak of the enormity of life, even when more directly speaking of love and romance. They give me a way of expressing emotions that I feel so strongly but have no way of sharing. My favorite song these days is "Koi Humdum Na Raha" along with it's translation. To me it speaks of the essential reality of each of us feeling completely alone in this world, when we are without love. Love connects us to all that is around us.

a new way to grow

Perhaps I am meant to start every new post this year with the phrase "a new ..."! A lot of new things will happen for me this year. The biggest one, which I think is going to grow me in a way that nothing else has before is having a baby. Now early in my fifth month, I am truly soaking in what it means to be heading towards parenthood; or what I like to call the "care provider role". In talking to my friend Teresa, it started to down on me just how much this experience is already growing me -- yes, I am growing physically but it's more than just that.

While making space in my belly, I am also making space ....

....to accept change in every moment
....for all the people that are part of my life to be embroiled in it even more
....for the grayness of life
....for muddying the rules as needed and remaining focused on the principles behind them
....for not having my way
....for giving up control and letting my body, spirit and the little being within me to be my guide
....to breathe and relax
....to take things as they come
....for all the energy and calm this event will demand
....for wisdom and imagination above knowledge

I feel like I am being stretched in many ways and this is only the start!

a new start

As I have grown, I have come to attach less and less significance to occassions like birthdays, wedding anniversaries and others. At some point, the radical part of my soul began to question why I attached significance to these occassions. A large reason was that I wanted an excuse to celebrate. I also wanted a way to make someone or myself feel special. While there is nothing "wrong" with either of those reasons, I found that I had come to rely on birthdays and other occassions to fulfill my need to celebrate or treat someone special. The presence of these occassions had eroded away at the possibility of me celebrating whenever I felt like it, instead, I was waiting for a specific day to do so. It began to feel like a unspontaneous way to live. So, I started getting detached from most occassions. As I explained this to Vamshi and found that he felt about it just as strongly; jointly we dropped occassion-oriented celebrations from our lives including our birthdays. Instead, we celebrate each day as it comes, we still go out on date nights and take efforts to spend quality time. We have also given big occassion like gifts simply when we felt like it. The surprises and excitement we have felt from these has been very special.

In doing all of this, we hadn't until this year let go of New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve was a big deal for me in my youth and I have hung on to it as the years have gone on. As I slowed down on celebrating other occassions, I didn't feel the same urge to dig into New Year's Eve but it kept happening, mostly because of the people around me. Then, we came to this year and hit upon the perfect opportunity to not feel compelled to do anything at all. As Dec 31st arose, I wondered if I could really pull it off. Could I shed a habit, a tradition that I had nutured and then hung on to for close to 25 years? I doubted myself. I even asked Vamshi if we should do something -- much in contradiction to our original plan to not do anything special.

However, as the day wore on, I found myself doing something very different. I started cleaning out spaces in my life - my kitchen, my desk, old bills, closing on the family calendar and budget or touching base with friends that I needed to and had been putting off. I was unconsciously closing on the year gone by and clearing the way for a new start. I had unknowingly created a new New Year's Eve (Day?) celebration -- one that fits with my current personality much more. Ordinarily, I would have spent the day preparing for a big evening event. Instead, I spent quiet time contemplating and closing on the year so I could start the next one with a few focus. I had never planned to do this yet it turned out to be one of the most satisfying New Year Eve celebrations I have had in recent years.

It now fascinates me to reflect on the innumerable possibilities that lie ahead when I can shed old habits and have the courage to not put new ones in their place.

Welcome 2007!