Can you believe I've been writing here at this blogspot address for 10 years?! My nostalgia-loving butt is going to miss this site, but I'm excited to announce that I've got something SO. MUCH. BETTER.
"The only thing distinctly different about me is that I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be overworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me. But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things that can happen. Either you're going to get off first, or I'm going to die. It's really simple. So let's go back to what I do when people reject me. I'm either going to get back in, or I'm going to die. The majority of people who aren't getting the things they want, or aren't achieving the things they want, is strictly based on hustle. It's strictly being based on being outworked, on missing crucial opportunities. If you stay ready, you don't have to get ready."
- Will Smith
Things are a little hectic up in this joint right now. At work, my boss is on sabbatical, so I've had to fold his duties into mine, and on the personal front, I can't seem to stop trying to do all of the things. This isn't a complaint. I dig it. Usually.
Now? I need to buy myself some time so that I can work on finishing www.serenamcclain.com! I've wanted a new online home for a while, so I'm stoked to get it up and running. The problem is that I write slowly (obsessing over almost every word), and when I have to write about anything related to me, we're talking glacial. The ice caps melt faster than I can write an about page. So, instead of just leaving this space blank for a bit, I'm going to combine my love of pop culture with my collection of quotes and just keep the next month simple. I'm calling it breaking good :-)
I think this post may break one of own blogging rules*. Oh well, we're all a little hypocritical, right?
*The first rule of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club.
Gilead (by Marilynne Robinson) took me by surprise. I'd listened to Rebecca and Jeff discuss it on the Book Riot Podcast, so I was fairly certain there would be tears. I just misjudged completely what would make me emotional.
Let's back up. Gilead is the story of a much older father writing to his young son, attempting to cram a lifetime of learning and relationship into what he thinks are the last few weeks or months of his life. In an almost stream of consciousness, the father (a preacher) weaves family history with spiritual struggle in a way that's entirely unpretentious and, yet, rendered beautifully.
I fully
expected to cry at the father's anticipated death. Instead, I found tears pouring down my cheeks at
the points where his struggles are my struggles and when he nails ideas I've only begun to circle around. He speaks of each of us being alone, essentially being unknowable to each other and comparable to distinct civilizations. Somehow, it was in these words that I felt known, unalone.
Robinson captures so eloquently my desire to know, really know, my family. Parents lead such interior, seemingly secret lives from their children, and to be able to share in what makes them them seems precious.
"I'm trying to make the best of our situation..."
You need only look at my dog-eared copy to know that there are so many highlight-worthy passages in this book. I can tell it's one I'll keep coming back to.
Do you have books you read on the regular? It's somewhat abnormal for me.
Listen to Ravena and I talk about this and other books we've been reading over the last two weeks!
I realize I'm a bit of a sucker for nostalgia, but can we reminisce for a moment about where all of the CDs have gone?
I was digging through a few old purses last week in a desperate search for my expired passport when I uncovered this relic of the past. It shared a snazzy envelope with a mix of Muse songs and was tucked in next to a "best of" Foreigner set. [I know I'm not the only one to want nothing more than to be able to belt out I Want to Know What Love Is while driving down the highway.]
Anyway, I digress. Is anyone still making mix CDs these days, or are the kids just trading Spotify playlists? If so, where's the magic in that? Can you accidentally stumble upon a playlist someone made for you five years later and become instantly overwhelmed with the rush of emotion you used to feel when you listened to those songs?
Serendipity is such a charmer. It was awesome to rediscover this mix CD and pop it in, having totally forgotten who gave it to me or what was on it. I didn't even mind that a couple of the songs made me tear up as, in the popular vernacular of our times, I had all the feels ;-)
Do you still make mix CDs? When was the last time you made one?
P.S. I consider finding an eight-year old fossilized chocolate bar a sign that every now and then I can muster great restraint.
A new episode of That's What She Read (TWSR) went live last Tuesday, and if you like books, I reckon* there's something in there for you. Ravena and I sat down with Amy from Lemon and Raspberry and Megan from The Nerd Nest, discussing everything from superheroes and trickster gods to John Quincy Adams and Sherman Alexie.
I'm really enjoying our periodic "supper club" episodes and the opportunity to talk to other awesome readers. It should come as no surprise that my to-read list grows with each new episode. Megan's discussion of Burgess's invented slang in A Clockwork Orange immediately set me on the hunt for my own copy with the original British ending.
If you're interested in expanding your reading game even more, Amy has started the L&R Book Club, a "non-fiction, leadership/business/self-helpy/personal development" book club. In the latest episode of TWSR, she talks about their current selection, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.
"I love the idea that creativity is not mystical, that it's not that the muse is going to come down and anoint you with her powers. It's that creativity is a job, and you just need to get the structure in place to be able to leverage the creativity that you already have." - Amy T. Schubert
I would totally join this book club if I didn't dislike Facebook so much.
As for me, I'm still feeling gushy about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (part of the amazing Indonesian cover above) by Junot Diaz. Listen to this mega, book-filled episode of the podcast to hear more about it and all of the other books we discussed!
This is what art is all about for me. It's the visceral, fuck yeah reaction you get in your gut from simply an initial glance. It's a message so fully formed that words aren't even needed.
A little over a week ago, a small group of friends and I held the kickoff meeting for a new writing group. Most of us are somewhere in our novel-writing journey, and this seemed like a way for us to both encourage each other and help each other grow as writers. Plus, if it's good enough for the Inklings, well, you know...
Our plan is to keep the group small at first in order to work out the kinks. Everyone is understandably nervous about sharing and critiquing work. We used our first gathering to discuss things like meeting frequency, what everyone hoped to get out of a writing group, etc., and we now have a name thanks to Scarlet! Introducing the Interrobang Writing Group. I've already learned something because I had no idea what an interrobang was. ;-)
At some point toward the end of the night, Abbie asked everyone where they found writing inspiration. The type-A overachiever in me decided to get semi-comprehensive about it and ended up pulling together a list of links for the group covering everything from general inspiration to feedback/critique to some nitty-gritty tools. I even included a spreadsheet I pulled together a couple of years ago with information on potential places to submit stories. After discovering I had 63 links* to articles, video, and audio, I decided to format it and will share it with my newsletter subscribers this week.
Why am I telling you this? If you want a copy of these 63 distractingly delightful tips and my spreadsheet of places to submit your writing, you should sign up for my newsletter ASAP! Just enter your email address below, and I'll make sure you get a copy. Besides, the last edition of the newsletter included a yummy photo of Idris Elba, and who doesn't want that?
*My favorite inspiration comes when I curl up with a good novel, and the best tip (IMO) is to just write.
I finally picked up the second book in the Raven Cycle, The Dream Thieves, and it was awesome!
In the follow up to The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater once again transports us
to the fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia (a town I'm convinced is
set in the rolling hills somewhere between Charlottesville and
Harrisonburg) where Blue and the boys continue their search for Glendower,
a real medieval Welsh prince and warrior who led a revolt in September 1400
against English rule of Wales. He disappeared mysteriously in 1412. Though rumors of his death and burial location exist, it has never been confirmed, making him perfect fodder for spooky legends (e.g., being first
immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part 1). The Raven Cycle series takes the legend of sleeping kings approach wherein the king is not really dead but instead in a tomb waiting to be woken. In The Dream Thieves, whomever finds Glendower and wakes him will be
granted a favor.
Can you tell I love the throwback to a real person from history?
The Dream Thieves is filled with legends and ley lines and talk of St. Mark's Eve/the corpse road, but there is plenty of real-life happening and kids just struggling to fit in. Where I feel The Raven Boys focused quite a bit on developing Blue into the fascinating,
strongish female character that she is, The Dream Thieves focuses less on her and more on Adam and Ronan. In the sequel, we learn more about the consequences of Adam's sacrifice (vague because no spoilers) and a bit about what lies underneath Ronan's anger management issues. Seriously, these are some emo boys.
One of the things I enjoy about these books is Stiefvater's
natural writing. These are teen novels, but I never felt like I had to
make allowances for the quality of writing. She has created a vivid world, both real and imagined, and her words give me all the tools I need to visualize each wacky, beautiful thing.
If you want to hear more about what I've been reading the last month or so, check out the latest episode of That's What She Read, my bi-weekly book podcast with my friend Ravena. We release a new episode every other Tuesday, and we'd love for you to listen along. You can also join the book discussion over on the That's What She Read Goodreads group.
Glines Canyon Dam, Elwha River, Washington. Photo: Mikal Jakubal
There is a low-stakes battle being waged inside this head of mine. The head versus the heart. The personal versus the professional. The pragmatic versus the radical. When stepping back and really thinking through what I take away from a documentary (and what others will take from that experience), which of those matter most and should come out on top?
Let me back up. A few weeks ago I attended a screening of DamNation at the D.C. Environmental Film Festival. The film explores the shift in attitude from a country built on dams (from the mill dam's role in the industrial revolution to the great dam-building era of the New Deal) to one in which the detrimental effect of many of these structures has given rise to an effort to remove certain dams and restore rivers. Filled with sweeping vistas and many charismatic rivers of the west, the film is gorgeous, visually spectacular. My inner aesthetician totally wants to fist-bump the cinematographer.
Back to the future? A century old I.W. Taber photograph shows the
beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley and Toulumne River before the dam and
reservoir buried this national treasure in a scene from DAMNATION.
Photo: Matt Stoecker
From the cultural and religious significance of salmon for many
tribes of the Pacific Northwest to the evocative landforms now buried by
Glen Canyon Dam, it makes a play for our heartstrings by blending the historic and spiritual. It also attempts to appeal to our inner wild thing with dam-scaling graffiti artists and a bit of a "fight the man" vibe running throughout the film's narration. The inner activist in me now wants in on the fist-bumping action.
However, as I sat in the theater, I looked around at all of the fleece and the shiny, white faces ready to take action and couldn't help wondering what my people would get out of this film. What would the ranchers in San Angelo, Texas make of this message? Would my grandfather--a helps with local elections, writes letters to the city council kind of dude--be moved to write a letter to editor next time an article appeared about a new dam being built? Texans appreciate the land and the water they have dominion over. In fact, more often than not, they'll work it like a bitch to extract every possible tiny bit of appreciation out of it that they can. And these aren't just Texas communities. They exist in every state. I work with them. I reckon (because that's how we do) this isn't their film.
Who was this film meant to appeal to? In my estimation, it's a documentary meant to appeal to and mobilize your base. Something to excite them to send their Congressional rep an email or drop a check in the mail to (hopefully) an effective environmental group. Maybe they'll be amped enough (until they realize it's not as sexy as the movies make it) to want to take on a dam removal in their neck of the woods. What it likely won't do is win that city council battle over removal of the municipally owned dam. The implicit bucking of authority and rules combined with gratuitous (even if artistic) female nudity would cause my grandfather and others like him to immediately discount the more salient arguments made for restoration.
I have DamNation to thank for my continuing mental thumb war--the pumped up girl who dashes off 'getting radical' posts versus the pragmatist who knows what it takes to make real change happen. What I do know is that documentaries can be powerful tools for change when wielded appropriately, and part of that power lies in identifying your audience--critical in developing your message, film and corresponding call to action.
Who do you strive to appeal to when you create?
Keep your eye on this space because I will be announcing a couple of exciting documentary-related projects inspired by all the questions of audience and social change brought about by this film. Sign up for my newsletter below to be the first to hear about it!
I ordered a test run of postcards for work and fell in love with Artifact Uprising. The paper quality is sumptuous!
I hadn't planned on writing a post for today. Reading a few lines of text is the last thing we should all be doing on Earth Day. However, I took on a "green" theme for the month of April and couldn't let today pass without sharing at least a little.
I struggle to write about the environmental side of my life. While I'm incredibly passionate about it, I spend 45-50 hours a week swimming in it. It wakes me up in the middle of the night and sends me driving three hours on a Saturday morning to help a local group with an event. It's evenings speaking at a public meeting because that's when everyone else can participate. I love every minute of it, but burn out is a real thing. Self-preservation means I tend to choose to leave that part of me at work. Plus, I tend to have a lot of passions, and they need their air time, too. :-)
So, no discussion on what you should be reading or watching or listening to. Instead, I think it would be awesome if we all spent 30 minutes today thinking about how we can level up whatever we're doing for the earth. You recycle and bring those cute bags to the grocery store. Can you pick up one more good habit this year?
Confession time. I'm a river-slash-book lover who has never read Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It. I've never even watched the movie. Drinking by the Rappahannock with one of the movie's leads (former board member...not Brad Pitt) is the closest I've come. Instead, it was the enchanted, river religiosity of David James Duncan that further exposed me to the transformative, motivational power of words.
My introduction to Duncan came years ago when I got my hands on a collection of his essays, My Story as Told by Water (do yourself a favor and look up the incredibly long subtitle). His essays painted salmon, trout and the spirituality of the fly fisherman in the way that makes the breath catch in your throat. And, while this is a pivotal work in my personal canon, it's his novel, The River Why, that I want to talk about today.
The River Why is a bit of a modern-day Walden, following the young Gus Orviston, a fly fisherman from a fishing obsessed family, as he leaves his family and isolates himself in a remote cabin on one of Oregon's rivers. On a journey of self-discovery, Gus boils much of his days down to eating, sleeping and fishing as he tries to follow nature's biological rhythms. While I found Gus a bit too self-indulgent at times, Duncan's beautiful prose would lure me back in.
“And so I learned what solitude really was. It was raw material -
awesome, malleable, older than men or worlds or water. And it was
merciless - for it let a man become precisely what he alone made of
himself.”
When Duncan gets it so right (like he does below), the excitable, effusive girl inside of me wants to leap up, pumping my fist in the air and shouting "hell yeah!"
"Fisherman should be the easiest of men to convince to commence the search for the soul, because fishing is nothing but the pursuit of the elusive.
Fish invisible to laymen like me are visible to anglers like you by a
hundred subtle signs. how can you be so sagacious and patient in seeking
fish, and so hasty and thick as to write off your soul because you
can’t see it?"
If you've got a low tolerance for impassioned soap-box rhetoric, you may
want to approach this novel with a bit of trepidation. Duncan is not
particularly subtle and doesn't sugar-coat his views on how we treat the
planet. Of course, that's only a tiny part of what I like about him.
We traveled far and wide when I was growing up, but the only legitimate hike I can ever remember doing as a family was climbing up Enchanted Rock near Fredericksburg, Texas. Honestly, I have no idea what possessed us to stop. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to tire two annoying kids. Whatever the reason, that majestic rock embedded itself in my conscious and became a bit of a mile marker in my life. I found myself revisiting it later in life, first, with my friend Audrey and later with my brother. Standing atop that pink granite rock felt powerful.
Enchanted Rock rises 1,825 feet above sea level which, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is akin to a 30 to 40 story building. Not too shabby for Texas. Evidently, there are more than 40 different climbs you can do and a whole slew of information about what you can and cannot do when climbing. However, there is a fairly straightforward (though steep at times) trail up the front of the rock for those who aren't rock climbers (raises hand).
Look how young we were! I'm the one with the red hair in the photo near the top.
If you love a good story, the rock is shrouded in mystery and legend. Visitors talk of seeing spirit fires (flashes of light) at night and how groans and pops have been known to permeate the night. Don't worry, it's just the rock expanding and contracting with temperature changes. If you prefer something a bit more lively, just ask the park rangers about the legend of the young Native American maiden who is said to haunt the rock.
While Enchanted Rock pales in comparison to some of the west's more famous rock features, it's worth planning a day trip to Fredericksburg for those making the trek to Austin. Both Enchanted Rock and Fredericksburg are in an area of Texas that historically had a large German settlement. If you choose to spend some time in Fredericksburg proper (and you should), there are a ton of shops as you stroll downtown, wineries known for use of the famous Fredericksburg peach, and several German restaurants worth a try.
A word to the wise, consider a trip to the rock in the spring or fall to avoid the scorching Texas heat on this bald rock and arrive early to ensure you make it in (particularly important on weekends).
I signed up for a fun new class a couple of weeks ago, Map Making: Learning to Communicate Places Beautifully. It's my first Skillshare class, and I'm thoroughly stoked! I'm a huge fan of maps and will admit to being one of those troglodytes who decried the spread of GPS and e-mapping. I don't like having a machine telling me each step to take. Have you ever had one of those things change its mind on you? Also, what if I want to see where I'm headed? Too complicated! Give me a paper map to plot my course on any day. Can you tell I have a frustrating experience with Google Maps on Friday? :-) The one nice benefit of having a map in my phone is that I suddenly look like less of a tourist when I'm trying to figure out where I'm going in a more urban environment (i.e., where I want to look cool and like I fit in).
This class isn't about turning you into a cartographer. It's more about exploring the beauty and creativity mapping can unleash.
How does this fit in with this month's Girl Goes Green theme?
As part of the class, each student creates a project to develop as they move through the lessons. I'm a huge fan of the way maps allow us a creative outlet for communicating concepts (beyond the traditional "this is how you get from Point A to Point B), so I decided to work on creating a map of the various creatures (both human and aquatic) that have relied on the Patapsco River throughout history. Here's a brief write-up I created to kick off my project...
The Patapsco River Valley was first settled by the Piscataway tribe
and home to what are crazy historical fish like American shad, alewife
and blueback herring. As Europeans moved in, the valley became a hotbed
of industrialization with textile and flour mills littering its banks
and small mill villages popping up. While traces of much of this history
is gone, the modern day valley still provides habitat for thousands of
park visitors each year who float the river, picnic along its banks and
cast a line for those historic fish. I want my map to illustrate the
rich life this river brings to the region and the human and ecological
communities it serves.
Plus, as you guys can probably guess, I'm totally making a coffee map of Northern Virginia if this first project doesn't wind up looking like a hot mess.
I have always despised the burning, choking sensation of chlorinated pool water rushing in through the nostrils. Sadly, it took me years to master not breathing through my nose. Imagine being the girl with the flesh-colored nose clip through those formative, awkward* years. Luckily, this skill developed** shortly before I joined a swim club held at one of the local high schools while I was in grade school and attempted to swim competitively.
Just as I was not particularly outdoorsy, I was not especially sporty either. However, I'm fairly certain the attempt to ensure some type of athleticism is a prerequisite for being an American youth. Out of all the athletic activities of my youth, swimming was the thing I seemed to fail the least at.
I was never the best. I don't recall actually winning any races. I do remember not sucking--brimming with a bit of confidence for receiving a ribbon for placing in breast stroke. A contradiction even at that age, I strove to collapse in upon myself walking around the pool to hide my thick middle and, yet, had an internal confidence (nee cockiness) for even being part of the club and competing. In the water, I was free, unencumbered by clumsiness or extra weight.
Recently, the orthopedic surgeon advised me to leave the treadmill behind and once again take up swimming to avoid further damage to my knee. While I've certainly swam laps here and there in recent years, this will be the first time in decades where I've actually attempted to train. Thankfully, I've got a handy new app to get me swimming a mile in six weeks and the confidence that I can still do that fancy underwater flip and keep on going.
*One could argue that I'm still in my awkward years. **There is the slight chance that my brain has switched things up in order to protect the innocent and that it wasn't until much later I gave up my nose clip. Ah, the joys of the aging brain. I suppose we'll never know. The horror, though, of a swim meet with a nose clip!
Chasing Ice starts off like a modern day disaster flick, splicing news clips of catastrophic flooding amidst footage of a spate of climate deniers. However, do not be fooled into mistaking this remarkable documentary for an environmentalist's attempt to incite panic and preach to his own congregation. The film chronicles award-winning nature photographer James Balog's(who also has an advanced degree in geomorphology) effort to collect evidence of the Earth's changing climate by documenting melting icebergs in Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and other countries.
Pulling together a group of young scientists, Balog forms what he calls Extreme Ice Survey and, using time-lapse photography, documents conditions at 18 glaciers beginning in 2007. Chasing Ice uses tangible science, visual evidence and stunning glacial backdrops to highlight the fact that we are witnessing the disappearance of these gargantuan glaciers at a breathtaking rate.
The film also explores the challenges involved in mounting an effort this ambitious, including Balog's battle with his body's own fragility as he is forced to undergo yet another knee surgery during the project.
I'm sure the cynics among us will question how interesting watching ice melt could be, but to open your heart and mind to Chasing Ice is to have your life changed. As for its "interestingness", I fell asleep in the theater during Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Chasing Ice had me leaning forward, pretty much on the edge of my seat, and jotting down ideas once it was over for how to get this into the hands of everyone I know.
If you watch and/or are interested in learning more and taking action, the Chasing Ice site has some additional information, including what you can do about climate change. Also check out the Extreme Ice Survey site for a discussion of why glaciers matter and the different types of glaciers. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't direct you to American Rivers website for information on federal and state policy changes that can help our communities better adapt to a changing climate.
Chasing Ice is currently streaming on Netflix (among other places), so for many of you, watching it is just a couple of clicks away. Hell, I'll even stream it via a Google Hangout if there's enough interest ;-)
All photos above are screen captures I took from the film.
I'm pretty green most of the time, but I try not to go off on "lunatic fringe" rants (because, when you do what I do during the day, you do get lumped into that category) too often because the guardians of the Internet tell me that running a blog means I have to have a limited number of categories. ;-)
An.y.way, there will be no rants this month. Instead, I will share...
some awesome documentaries for the environmentally conscious;
a couple of books that I think will appeal to everyone from your treehuggers to someone who just loves the outdoors;
one of my favorite outdoor temples;
another My Story As Told By Water; and
what being "pretty green" means to me.
Let's figure out how you can embrace the planet in your own way this month!
