There be bugs.

I've been spending the holidays at home in Arizona enjoying, among other things, the beautiful weather.  Having grown up here, I have absolutely no nostalgia for cold or white Christmases.

In part to celebrate the sunny, 70 degree weather in December, we trekked over to Phoenix the other day to the Desert Botanical Gardens and wandered around for the afternoon.  In other (larger) part to see a current art installation, showcasing giant wooden bug sculptures scattered strategically throughout the park.

They were fun to see, but I mostly enjoyed wandering around the trails for a few hours and remembering how beautiful I think the desert is. Lush green trees and grass are beautiful, I know, but the desert is just so unique.  Besides, the Sonoran desert in southern Arizona is actually quite lush.  For a desert.

Among the oddities of plants and flowers and bugs (e.g., fairy duster, jimson weed, assassin bug, devils claw, boojum tree, ghost flower, hedgehog cactus, prickly pear...), I was amazed at how perfectly life seems to adapt to every extreme of geography and climate. Of course that seemed to mean there wasn't a plant there that didn't have thorns or spines or stickers of some sort. Well, or poison.  Some were pretty creative and/or downright deceptive.

Related side note:  I did end up bleeding at one point.  My own fault.  (Really though, you end up with a lot of cactus stories when you grow up around the desert. Occupational hazard.)

I even learned a few things. Did you know:

• There are four different and unique desert ecosystems in the US, and Arizona is the only state to contain parts of all four?
• Arizona has been called the hummingbird capital of the world?
• Daddy Long-legs aren't even spiders?  Also not poisonous.  

Traveling.

In the last couple months of blog hiatus, I haven't been home much... on travel as often as I'm here. A lovely trip to Australia on vacation for two weeks (my sixth continent!), and a work trip to London for two weeks (yeah, life is rough).

I think my subconscious is happy to be home. Last night I dreamed that squatters had moved into my house while I was gone. (Well, in my dream it was my house, even though it looked nothing like my actual house.) I noticed their stuff right away, but was still on hold trying to call the police when people started showing up. By then word had gotten out, and there were like 50+ people trying to come into my house.  I finally got them to leave... even though they didn't really get why it was a problem. They were awfully obliging, though, at least I got nice squatters. By then, my phone call to the police had been disconnected, so I called back, but sat on hold for another 30 minutes or so before I woke up. Apparently my subconscious also doubts the efficiency of the DeKalb County police.

I've been back for a week now, can I still blame the weird dreams on jetlag?  Only one more short work trip before Christmas. Which is good... I've committed to get a lot done before the end of the year!

With a door.

As of Monday, we moved into a new building at work, and I now officially occupy an office, with a door!

(It's still a little sterile at the moment.)

After many years of shared space, and 4 years here of having half a cubicle in a room with 9 other people, this is SO MUCH BETTER.  I think I'd generally been pretty good at blocking out the ambient noise when I needed to, but I'm amazed how much easier it is to concentrate when I'm not in a relatively small room filled with several other people's conversations and conference calls and typing and breathing and... okay you get the point.

I'm still getting used to the layout of our new space, but I may have already done previously unheard of things like shut the door for an hour to finish up a presentation I was stressed about.  In my past life, someone would always manage to interrupt at just the wrong time.  Tomorrow, conference call in my own space without disrupting anyone.  I may not be out of the cubicle farm forever, but for now I am enjoying my new walls.

And yet somehow all I can think of is this:

The first harvest.

Seven beans!

You may think seven green beans is nothing to write home about, but since only a couple of weeks ago all my garden's plants were tiny, yellow, and dying, I'd like to celebrate the fact that I was able to nurse some of them back to some semblance of health.   (After I almost killed them in the first place.  Hmm... Münchausen, anyone?)

Let's just say 2011 hasn't been my best ever start to vegetables.  But, I think I will be able to salvage a few beans, peas, tomatoes, and maybe some beets and carrots this summer.  Don't worry.  I'll keep you posted.

Some things never change.

I was sorting through some old photos the other day, and had to laugh a little at these:

Yes, sleep is much better than play.

Why get someone else do something when you can figure out how to do it yourself?

Although, according to many photos I apparently rarely wore shoes as a child.  So, that's different.  

But, I like this one:

Aren't the 1980s wonderful? 

The five year plan.

Probably about 10 years ago, my mom made some off-handed comment along the lines of "well, five years from now you'll be married, anyway, maybe with a kid"... and from that moment on, it became legend. The "Five Year Plan", it was dubbed (I, of course, never being one to make something out of nothing).  This became a regular source of teasing my mother. Especially as the years ticked away. I even had roommates who used to ask me after my weekly phone call home for the update on "the Plan". What year was it in now?

In reality, I've hesitated to ever have much of an actual five year plan. As if having a five year plan was somehow a commitment that would require my life to turn out exactly that way.  I was talking to my supervisor at a recruiting event the other week, and the subject of five year plans came up... this being a common interview question. It doesn't have to actually work out that way, she said. But you should have something to say. Some idea at least of what you're working toward. Chances are something else will come up along the way, and that's fine. You just adapt.

Well, considering the "Five Year Plan" has not materialized as initially laid out (even though it was never actually laid out), I realize that makes perfect sense. The trouble is, I'm a bit too literal. Most of the time, I can't even commit to a favorite color, ice cream, movie, or book. My favorite answer? It depends. Lame, I know. But, it does!  Regardless, I know that's true for everyone, and no one actually cares if it is literally your favorite. It's just something you say. And it might be different the next time someone asks. And that's okay, too.

All of this is to say, I've been thinking a lot over the past several months about where my life is headed and what I want it to be. Maybe a bit neurotically at times. But, without any significant impending life decisions on the horizon, my life is pretty stable and, I worry, sometimes stagnant.

While I may struggle to pick favorites, I am willing to say that A River Runs Through It has been on my bedside table for at least a month now... reading and rereading passages I could probably cite by memory at this point.    I don't have any good reason to feel such nostalgia for the book -- I grew up in the suburbs and I've only ever fished once or twice... with bait (gasp).  I think I read it for the first time in high school, and I don't recall if that was before or after I watched the movie. I mean, this might have been motivating, right?  :)

But, I think it one of the most beautifully and lovingly written books I've ever read. Published when the author was 73 (his first book, after a career of teaching literature at the University of Chicago), it's the type of book that could only be written by an old man. One who had already lived and reflected on a lifetime of love and loss.

Maybe because I'm still moving forward in my own story, I find sometimes that it helps me to think about what I'd like it to look like on the back end.  A main theme of the book is of the redeeming power of mastery:

"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only a floating ash."

On the one hand, the book posits, pure talent is something special, but is innate; the truly gifted come that way:

“At that moment I knew, surely and clearly, that I was witnessing perfection. He stood before us, suspended above the earth, free from all its laws like a work of art."

But even so, expertise can be learned through practice and dedication:

"My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy..."

"One reason Paul caught more fish than anyone else was that he had his flies in the water more than anyone else. "Brother," he would say, "there are no flying fish in Montana. Out here, you can't catch fish with your flies in the air."

That's perhaps the comforting part to the perfectionist in me, most of my life being much less than pure talent.

I'm not sure that puts me any closer to a five year plan, but at least I can start to recognize areas in my life that need a bit more mastery.  And, where I haven't actually put in much effort.  It's the practice and dedication part that is the challenge.  Unfortunately Netflix is sometimes a bit more appealing...

Viva la electricity.

After a big storm in Atlanta this week, and several downed trees in the neighborhood, I was without power at my house for a couple of nights.  What to do? No TV or music. No cooking or baking without the stove. No internet. Cell phone almost dead without the ability to charge. No hairdryer after a morning shower. Assembling what I could for meals with the contents of my rapidly warming refrigerator.

The first night was spent more worried about the raging storm outside (and whether those large, violently swaying trees in my yard were going to remain upright) than being cut off from my usual routines.

The second night was quiet without the storm... no humming of appliances, no option of having the TV on in the background or music playing from my laptop (with its now-empty battery). It was also very dark. I guess I don't generally recognize how much ambient light is generated from modern conveniences -- clock on the microwave, charging cell phone, etc. I did some dishes by candlelight, and then read a book by flashlight for a little while before going to bed early.

All in all, it was lovely.

(For 24 hours, anyway. Of course, when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw my flashing clock and realized the power was back on, I may or may not have checked my email... not because I was expecting anything, just because I could.)