If This is It?

Astute readers will note that Part II of the Grand Colorado Adventure has not been blogged upon yet; never fear, it's coming.

However, I feel the need for a little rant.

Last night, I attended a free performance by Huey Lewis and the News, one of my favorite bands from childhood.  In the mid-80's when their albums Sports, Fore and others were popular, my parents were listening to them, and so was I.  They were my first live rock concert.  At my brother's wedding recently, "The Heart of Rock & Roll" was on the wedding mix, and the DJ was befuddled, as were most of the wedding guests, who I guess didn't groove to Huey's raspy voice and rockin' tracks in their youth.  However, the 7,000+ people crowding the parking lot last night to see these aging musicians got it.  I'm just sad that they didn't appreciate it more.

Let me say again that this concert was free.  No cost to get in.  For those of you out there who might not understand the math, that means that someone paid the artists fees, travel costs, production fees for that big 'ol stage that sprung up on the asphalt, and then opened the gates. There's a lot of free music out there these days; concerts in the park, at bars, festivals, etc.  I could go on for hours about how I hate that we've come to expect music for free, and get mad when we have to shell out some cash for it.  But that's a rant for another day.

Two things jumped out to me last night.

1.  About 5 minutes before the show ended, as Huey was winding up his encore and teasing the crowd about what song he was going to sing, he made one last final plea (and it was a plea, more than a little desperate) for people to buy his new album.  Clear as day, the woman behind me said (I'm paraphrasing):  "He'd BETTER not play one of his new songs right now.  I want an OLD song."

2,  As we walked out of the parking lot, the ground was covered in crushed beer cans.

Number 2 is easy to lament; we're slobs.  If a trash can isn't in sight, we figure, "hey, that's their problem," and chuck our trash onto the ground.  Oh, there are just so many parallels for this small action in how we treat our world these days, but lest I be accused of being a liberal communist who wants to destroy industry by cleaning up our air, I'll move on.

It's Number 1 that truly gets me a'ponderin'.  Last night, the crowd tolerated the band's new music.  I'll admit I wasn't as excited to hear that music as I was the old hits that I remembered from past, but I enjoyed them, and thought they lent a nice feel to the evening.  But toward the end, I heard rumblings from more than just the lady behind us.  There was a feeling of "I didn't come here to hear new music.  I came to hear the songs that are familiar to me."  Huey himself zinged this sentimentality by lamenting, before they sang Power of Love; "Who knew, 25 years ago when we wrote this song, that we'd have to sing it every night of our lives?"  Can you imagine that?  You're an artist, you're on the road, and you have sung the same song every show for a quarter of a century.  That tenacity, and the ability to make it sound good each night, amazes me, much as the ability of a Broadway actor to perform a role 8 times a week, week after week after week.

At the risk of being too intellectual, I think this phenomenon, which has existed ever since live performance became a thing, says something about us as a people.  We crave what's familiar.  We crave what's safe.  The new stuff is interesting, but it doesn't touch a chord inside us.  In fact, when it comes right down to it, we merely tolerate the new stuff. Oh sure, there's that self-identified "new music" crowd, but I'll bet even they beg their favorite bands to play the hits. Sadly, I think this mentality translates into politics, movies and social change, too.

Still, though, I have to give props to musicians like Huey Lewis and his band for trying, even in the face of our laziness, to create something "new."  Maybe someday a Huey cover band will play one of the songs on his 2010 album.  It's a long shot, though, when the Heart of Rock & Roll is still beating.  :)

Grand Colorado Adventure, Part I

"You need an adventure, not a vacation." 

The friend who casually said this to me probably doesn't know that I have taken it as a kind of mantra.  It perfectly described why I kept wanting to do a national park trip.  And it's led to me being here, in a bustling coffee shop in the Rockies.

Granted, my idea of "adventure" is pretty tame compared to most. For our river guide yesterday, it means rock-climbing up a cliff that has never been climbed before. For me, it means a new place, with some amazing natural beauty, and maybe a bit of outdoor activity; it's a trip that doesn't involved visiting friends or family in their natural habitats.  But it also means finding a coffee shop and taking some time to reflect on why I need this adventure and what has happened so far.

The adventure began on Friday with a trip on Southwest from Tulsa to Denver.  This is unusual in that I normally fly out of our overpriced yet convenient local airport, and I don't get to enjoy the quirks of flying Southwest.  Like the brightly colored planes, the friendly (sort of) jostle for the best seats, the singing flight attendants, the peanuts on board (!) and the whole "Bags Fly Free" thing, which definitely made packing easier.

The flight was largely uneventful, if you don't count the fact that we circled for a while to avoid a large thunderstorm (that I could see from the window).  We were treated to a little rainbow as we taxied in to our (occupied) gate.

Then my friend and I were off to acquire our rental car.  After a cordial battle with the rental car agent (why is it always SO difficult to get what you actually reserved at a rental car company?  No, I don't need the extra horsepower, Mr. Agent Man.  Why do you assume that since I'm a girl I won't understand that you're trying to fleece me?) 

Our drive up to the town of Estes Park was dark.  We couldn't see the mountains that we knew we were driving into.  Then to the hotel to crash, which wasn't that easy for me; when you're used to sleeping alone, it's a little weird to be in the same room with another person. 

Which brings me to the awesomeness of the particular friend I am traveling with.  This is a friend that I know from business school, but we weren't in the same class.  In fact, we have gotten to know each other via conferences, serving on a board together, and some involved facebook chats.  So when I tossed this out to the facebook universe a few months back:


I'm thinking of visiting a National Park this summer.  Anyone wanna join me?

I didn't really think I'd get a response.  But this friend said she was in and thus began a planning process that took too long but eventually led us here.  And so far, we seem to be good traveling companions.  Neither of us seem to be terribly agenda driven, and I think we both need this break for different reasons.  All that is to say, I slept better last night.

But I get ahead of myself.  Yesterday was an amazing day.  We were up at the crack of dawn (and nearly missed our van) and driving over the mountains to get to the Colorado River.  We got up to 12,000 feet (two miles above sea level) and then wound our way back down.  We wound up on a boat with a strangely delightful group that included our guide Nate, a bit of a stereotypical adventure seeker who still had us laughing and enjoying ourselves, a father-son duo from Denver, and three sisters who were spending a few days together before one of them shipped off to Afghanistan for a year-long deployment as a field medic.  I bought one of those old-school disposable cameras, so the wait time to see the photos will be longer than normal.  But, here's the thing.  I have always had this vision in my head of "rafting the Colorado".  If one can have a bucket list at 35, this was on it.  The natural beauty was all I'd hoped for.  About the only negative was I could have done with less floating and more rapids, but hey, we were beginners. (I fully intend to go back, and demand more chances to risk my life on whitewater.) And then we all wound up at the cantina for dinner, where unfortunately the much-hyped avocado margarita was not all I wanted it to be.

So as I sit here enjoying the buzz of conversation, the clean light and the blue, blue Colorado sky from my coffee shop corner, I don't really know why adventure is what I need right now.  It might be that a lot of things in my life feel stalled at the moment, and out here, at least, everything is new and beautiful.  It might be that nagging feeling that time is moving too fast, and there are too many things I haven't seen and done yet.  Or maybe it's just that I miss the mountains. 

Whatever it is, I can't wait to see what happens next.  

Blessings

Blessings is a word I don't use very often.  Mostly because it smacks of religion, and I'm not religious in the traditional (or really any) sense of the word.  It always feels hypocritical for me to use it.

However, as I navigated through today, one of those crazy up and down days, that was the word that kept coming back to me.

First, I woke up under a cloud of gloom for no apparent reason.  Within moments of rising from bed, my dog had figured out that I'd best be left alone.  I had to turn around at the end of my street because I'd forgotten my makeup, and heaven forbid I go to a meeting without makeup.

As I headed through the spitting rain toward the first traffic light on my route to work, grumbling about the returning college students and how they screw up the traffic...what should appear but a rainbow, with the shadow of a double, staring me smack in the face as if to say "quit bitching, Jodi."  Blessing.

At a business meeting that morning, I had a moment of weakness and confessed to the roomful of women that I was having a gloomy morning, and I got to witness what only women can truly understand; the whole room tried to cheer me up, en masse, with a quick word or thought, and then we got down to business.  No fuss, just some support, and then we were on our way.  Blessing.

Next came an awards luncheon.  These make me uncomfortable, because while I confess that I enjoy being recognized I also can't help but feel that humility should be more important than recognition.  Still, I got to spend about an hour with 2 business leaders who have decades of experience being innovators, and their advice was smart and wise and funny and perfectly timed for me.  I needed to stop worrying about management for a few minutes and think about leadership, and that's what I did. Blessing.

I arrived back at the office and was greeted by a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a card that read "Jodi Bad-Assnoska", prepared by my staff in congratulations.  Blessing.

Messages of congratulations poured in all day via facebook, email and text.  Blessing.

There was an earthquake in the Mid-Atlantic where friends and family live.  Everyone is fine.  Blessing. 

Then came a chance to tell a stranger why what we do at Walton Arts Center is exciting and important.  Blessing.

Despite all of the good, by this point in the day, exhaustion was setting in.  I skipped an event and headed home to my dog and my streaming Hulu, thinking vaguely that I was being lazy and should do something more productive.  I ordered pizza to be delivered, despite knowing that I should be eating nothing but veggies for dinner. And I slumped on my bed feeling tired and overwhelmed by the thoughts in my head, big thoughts about my life, the direction I want to take it, and what my future holds.

But then facebook started to liven up, so much so that I had to turn off the streaming Hulu.  More congratulatory messages came through.  A friend and I booked flights for a weekend getaway to the Colorado Rockies.  A bunch of friends wanted to chat.  Tentative plans were laid for a trip with another friend. I realized how wide and varied my network of friends is, and how awesome that is. Many blessings.

Feeling re-energized once again, I headed out with Sadie (to attempt to walk off the pizza) in the humid sunset, and rediscovered my "walking" IPod mix.  We had a great walk, the longest we've been on in a while, and it felt amazing.  I had a moment of clarity as I strode through the 'hood, my dog at my side, music in my ears.  I may not be as skinny as I want to be, but I am blessed to be able to walk quickly, run if I choose (no thanks) and keep going for as long as I want to. 

All those big life questions still linger.  They haven't gone away.  But putting them in perspective is the legacy of today's blessings, I think.  When you have friends, family, two legs that work, an IPod, employment and an awesome dog, you are blessed.

Thinking small

I hate politics.  I really do. 

It brings out the contrary side of my nature; you know, that teenager-like side that refuses to agree with your parents no matter what they say? 

It gives the undeserving far more than their alloted 15 minutes of fame.   Oooh, here's a new rule that will solve our budget issues in a few months - politicians (and pundits) who get more than 15 minutes of fame should be taxed for the excess. 

It forces us to distill hugely complex problems into tweets/soundbites, which are decidedly not helpful.  For example, from the right: Obama sucks.  From the left: Republicans suck.  From the middle: WTF is going on?

I spend a lot of time (too much) thinking about these issues on a macro level, worrying about lofty things like "society" and "our culture."  (Especially when egged on by my dad, who delights in forwarding me emails that he knows will get my blood pressure up.  :)  ) I'm not sure why I do this.  I'm not a politician, academic, journalist or celebrity foster mom.  I'm just a gal from rural NH with delusions of grandeur.  Clearly, I am blessed to have the time for this kind of thought; after all, I'm not out hunting boar or building a shack from pine needles. 

Today in a meeting, I was expressing that I simply could not figure out how to take a large map of available parking and shrink it down to a business card size.  I have been trying for weeks and can't seem to make it work in my head.  It's a mental block, and it's ridiculous.  I can whip out a 34 page brochure like nobody's business, but this little project is confounding me.  One of my staff sweetly and jokingly said "You just can't think small."  We all laughed, but I think she's on to something. 

Here are the facts:

I have one vote.

I am not a lobbyist.

I am not a lawmaker.  

I am not a thought leader.  There are probably 8 people who read this blog.  (and I love each and every one of you!)

These facts clearly illustrate that I will not change the world anytime soon.  I think it's time to go back to striving for smaller victories.  Time to use the brains and skills I've acquired to do some fruitful and useful work, instead of obsessing over faulty forwarded emails and the infuriating genius of Fox News. Time to focus in on what I actually have the power to change. 

And unfortunately, time to realize that changing my dad's mind about politics is a bigger job than I can handle, one that might require lobbyists.  Love ya, Dad, even if you are misguided.  :)

(addendum: while search for a funny photo/image to post with this entry, I came across these two books, which brightened my mood considerably.  I think I know what I'm getting my Dad for Christmas. Both are available on Amazon.com)