On United Flight 1184

[Image via friend Daniel Terdiman, News.com...read his whole awesome article.]

On United Flight 1184, spread couchily across 35 G and H, the Rockies are reflected in my quite reflective screen. It’s usually only me layered over whatever doc I’m working on, but this morning it’s all wing and mountains. Working looking at my constant reflection is hard on my eyes, and completely odd. Nothing like looking at your face 10 hours a day to ground you in the fact that you’re getting older.

It’s been one week since I returned from SXSW Interactive, and today I’m headed to NTC in New Orleans. I’m leaving spring in San Francisco, and not thrilled about it.

Conferences are crucibles of interaction though, and the past two weeks have been intense and creative. I expect this week will be no different.

Jane McGonigal’s keynote has been on my mind. Her superhero qualities (above) are mooshing with my interest in SuperHero Camp this summer. Tantek and I had a fascinating exchange about programs for change, and started to talk about how to build them, how they replicate, and how to understand people. The Leslie and I have springlishly committed to each other that we will explore a new idea, for reals. Obama gave a speech I was grateful to hear, and among other hopes, I hope he stayed up all night to write it himself. [Here we wobble and drift, through clouds over snowy peaks. And the mountains end and it’s a sea of houses on the plain.]

If I sit with my hips all the way back in the seat, regally postured, I’m always the tallest person on the plane. The view from 30,001 feet.

Soundtrack: Shuffle…Gillian Welch/ Miss Ohio, Elliot Smith/ Miss Misery, Aimee Mann/ Wise Up, Mountain Goats /The Mess Inside, The Beatles/ I’m Looking Through You.

Remembering.

Smitten by a smart blog post today, on a lesson I'll likely be learning for the rest of my life. Ask for help when you need it, and give it as much as you can.

A rash of friends have been getting their hearts broken lately, and I'm finally healing from the most exhausting work I've ever done. Expressing gratitude has helped lots...even my birthday invites were included thank you notes. If I could write a letter to spring, I'd do that too.

Read it all: Lessons to remember.

Y told me about some difficult times she has had ~ about that low point that many (only a few?) of us reach when we have been dragged down by doubt ~ in ourselves and in others. For some, that point means forgetting all the great things about yourself. So many of us have done things to try to feel better about ourselves and/or numb the pain ~ some sleep around, some drink, some run away, many of us bury ourselves in work so we're not distracted by the emotions we don't know what to do with ~ some of us write about it so we don't have to live it. We all do something about it, for better or worse. Y did something about it, too.

One day she sent an email to some friends and family and, I say through sheer courage, she says through sheer need to survive, she asked them all simply, "Tell me something good about myself; I need to hear it."

Good job sheltering the hope, Y.

Roots.

Several years ago, Jon Strange sent me a link to an article (a link, unfortunately, now dead). The article transcribed an interview of Eduardo Galeano by David Barsamian, since published in Louder than Bombs. Communications between the Jon and I are rare and deep. I take things he sends my way seriously.

In it there were two phrases that have stuck with me permanently. I hadn't realized how permanently until I unearthed the battered copy of the interview while unpacking. Sitting at my newly located kitchen table this morning I re-read the article.

Estamos muy mal hechos, pero no estamos terminados.
We are very badly made, but we are not finished.
At the time I was deep in sadness, and found hope in the idea that I was not finished with the making of myself, nor were those around me. Hope and forgiveness and compassion in one sentence. Since reading this article I've paid more attention to compassion, to understanding and being loving towards the people around me.

The other phrase, "abrigar esperanzas, to shelter hope" has had an even more direct impact. It has come to define how I think of myself. I am a hope shelterer. It is my job, it is my role in my community, and I take it as my first obligation to friends and family. Eduardo says more about hope.

"Hope needs to be abrigada, protected. She's fragile and a little delicate, but she's alive. I have friends who say 'I'm entirely hopeless, I don't believe in anything.' But you go on living. How is it? I hope I never lose hope, but if that day comes and I'm sure that I have nothing to expect, nothing to believe in, and that the human condition is doomed to stupidity and crime, then I hope I will be honest enough to kill myself. Of course, I know the human condition is at once horrible and marvelous."

It is good to be reminded of these two catalysts for my direction for the past three years. This wasn't a new direction, but focusing points, touchstones for daily action. I'm grateful today the marvelous and horrible human condition, and for having friends who know me so well. Thanks, Jon.

Ask.

The first of the 2007 mottoes is in effect.

Ask what people need.

It's my job to do this and then translate it into an action plan, and execute the plan. It's also the foundation of community organizing, a set of trainings that I refer to often. This year I'll focus extra hard on the important bit of asking and not assuming. Offer help when you see it's needed, and don't forget to always ask, "What do you need? How can I help?"

Under consideration.

I'm working through potential mottos for 2007. (While trying simultaneously to distill what 2006's might have been. Or could have been. I'm not considering what it _should_ have been.)

My friend Laura (Laura-of-the-hard-jobs, I call her) differentiates between life mottos and annual mottos. I admire this, and she's the inspiration for the mottoization of 2007. I usually think of myself as having figured out my values in the way back. On a daily basis, I think of myself as refining the application of those values. I usually think that my values don't/ haven't changed. My perception of the constancy of my, uh, Value Palette is primarily based on 1. My firm your work-is-the-greatest-part-of-your-life-so-choose-well policy, 2. My ongoing focus on loving kindness, and 3. My firm policy of supporting other people in the sheltering of their hope. I suspect an inventory of my values is due to flesh out fuzzier parts, or more accurately to bring clarity and focus to what I'm already doing.

Potential 2007 mottos under consideration:

*Give as much as you can.
Bringing a focus to what I'm giving, to whom, and if I'm giving enough. Or too much. Redefining give and much and can. Intention.

*(Motto TBD)
Working towards things vs. contentment with what you have. Striving discontentedly vs. settling into (for?) contentment. Working on big, hard things vs. reveling in the joy of the everyday. A Nobel prize vs. sunlight on eyelids.

San Francisco

A guy asks a guy how he likes living in New York:
"It's great," he said. "Everybody's insane with loneliness, but that's OK. After a while you realize that's part of the edge."

I was hit with a paradox. I wanted to be in New York, I wanted to be "part of the edge", but I didn't want to be "insane with loneliness". Was one necessary in order to have the other? Was it a price worth paying? To this day, I still have no answer.

A couple of months later (July, '98) I drew this, sitting on a barstool. Thinking back to that conversation with Mark, suddenly I had a realization: The simple truth about New York is that people don't go there to give. They go there to take, or at least, to get. If you feel like giving, good for you, somewhere an angel is smiling yada yada yada, just don't expect other people to follow your example. And if you're feeling lonely, at least now you now know why. http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000729.html (dooooown to Fanelli's)

Right. So San Francisco is not like that, not for me. My business contacts are friends. My parties have invite lists of 100+ because I actually _like_ that many people...and those are just the ones I really like. Life is good, and San Francisco is fantastic.

Not so bad at all.

Wow. A whirlwind two weeks in Rachelland. This weekend: Finch Mob gatherings in the gallery, the basement/performance space and the tippity tip of the Panhandle. Saw many yummy people: Dicky, Leslie, Scott Polly, Eddie, Rebecca Charlie Pouneh, Travelin, Bex, Marcus. Also on Sautrday, Chicken's puppet benefit. (After a total crash...slept 20 hours Saturday.) And Ladytron Friday. And before that the BRAF benefit, Flip Your Lid.

Before that it gets fuzzy...there was the Makers Faire weekend, the Catfish/Earthquake Party, Hale's amazing easter brunch where I got to re-meet Andy Tannehil, and buckets of good work getting done: fundraising for the ScrapHouse documentary (headed to air on National Geographic), working on ScrapEden for BRAF, wrapping up things for CUE and meetings with Mayumi.

I'm so happy to be working with so many people doing good work.

Looking forward to the NetSquared conference.