Meaning

Dateline---May 31, 2009

The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines meaning as:

Significant quality; especially; implication of a hidden or special significance.

It is not until today that I so singularly pinpoint a major theme of my life, or rather, the way I live. I invest in meaning, in things being meaningful.

Though I was thankful to have a place to go to last night, a place to hang out and commiserate with others, I did not have a great time at the party and bailed as soon as I could. I put words to feelings I've had in the past when I told Anne on the phone today that I would rather have an intimate conversation or get-together with a few friends, than go to a party with many people. I would rather connect to someone, even if it hurt, than to have a superficial and shallow conversation with someone. I invest in the power that words hold, in the fact that they can symbolize meaning to another individual. The sheer fact that words, letters that represent sounds which ring from our vocal cords, can mean something from the mind, heart and soul, makes communication a profound exercise in humanity. This is precisely why I chose Communication Studies in college; as a non-believer and intense atheist Freshman year, communication glinted with a divinity all its own.

I hate small talk. I hate shallowness. I hate ease-when it comes to people settling on easy achievements. I've never liked the idea of casual sex; it is the epitome of ease. We are biologically wired to have sex as a survival technique, which means, that it takes no thought at all, past the age of puberty, to jump on someone.

But what's the point if it doesn't mean something? What's the point of telling someone you love them if that love doesn't include all the fierceness and loyalty and depth that mean something?

A digression I suppose. But I realized that with my wiring, I'm not able to just fool around with someone or "to date and have fun." I'm not able (and am fortunate enough to not have) to take a job if I can't see it's worth somehow. Many people would say I'm uptight--and I'd agree, but only because most people live in this world where emotions, goals and ideas don't necessarily require a quality or significance. I can't bring myself to live in a world without value, without intentions and qualities and significances. I just wasn't wired that way.

My biggest curse and one of my most valued qualities is that I live in an idealist's plane of experience--there are higher meanings and purposes and values and qualities to ideas and policies and actions. This means I crash and burn from time to time. When I am torn up and lying awake at four in the morning going over every detail of what went wrong or what I hate about life or myself--do I wish that I could let it go and not take things so seriously? Absolutely. Does it worry me that I take things so seriously? YES. Does this mean that there is an extraordinary amount of pain in store for me as I wander this life. YES.

But I remember a conversation I once had with a very skilled and compassionate man; a psychologist. He said that while it may suck on an emotional level to be me, to live the way I do, people like me are needed in the world, because the natural world order is for the strong to eliminate the weak. For the world to work on sheer power and strength; feelers, empaths are needed to make the world a better place; a place where "weak" things can show their worth and brilliance as working parts of this world. We are the idealists, the ones constantly shouldering the burden because others won't. We're the ones that want to judge and create and reform and inspire others to achieve levels of potential greatness.

We are the bohemians that champion art, freedom, truth, love so that others may draw some enjoyment from these things. Because, at th end of the day, if no one else is going to support the world, they let it drop at their feet, they live an easier life but for the sake of everyone here, someone (or some people) need to be Atlas--shouldering the junk the easy people have left by the wayside.

This work means something and I'm just waiting to mean something to someone else.

Gavin DeGraw sings---

Love has a reason,
There's a meaning to the world

Why I Love South Pasadena

When I really look around I feel very lucky to live where I do. Not only have I always been able to call myself a citizen of Los Angeles, an Angeleno in the truest sense--because I've always lived within Los Angeles city limits--but because I've grown up in such an interesting place. 

The city has always laid at my feet. I was merely days old when my mom was rolled out of the hospital and both my mom and dad brought me home and laid me on their bed at our condo in Monterey Hills, a neighborhood atop a tall hill just South-East of South Pasadena. Though the lower portions of the Monterey Hills area is a bit slummy, like most of Los Angeles, the hill was a conglomeration of what makes LA so neat; a mix of city and nature as Debbs State Park resides there. 

When we left the condo on the hill and moved into the Oleander house in the summer of 1992, I found that this dichotomy of city and nature was prevalent here too. The house, on a tall hill, surrounded by acres of open land, hillside, orange trees, eucalyptus and crab-grass, it also sits in Los Angeles city limits. And, much to my surprise, my bedroom window faces South, and I can directly see the old condo in Monterey Hills where I started my life. 

I was bicycling today through my neighborhood--for the first time since I was a young teenager. As I'm crossing the York Blvd bridge into South Pasadena, I can look down and see the Arroyo I love so much; I can smell the hey from the little horse stable and I see a horse's muzzle sticking out of his stall. I feel so lucky to live in this crux of natural California; dry riverbed, fragrant arid land and city all meet up here at this crossroads. 

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South Pasadena is an interesting town. It has one foot rooted in the heydays of the 50s, as the corner of Fair Oaks and Mission silently attests, and the city has an eye to the future. 

A city that functions independently with its own mayor and city council, its own school district and downtown, it is a throwback to the idea that Los Angeles is a conglomeration of varied and unique cities--both micro-metropoli and smalltown USA mainstays. 

For a fairly wealthy town with longstanding high property value, and conservative political and business nature, South Pasadena's landmark Rialto has long been home to avant-garde celebrations of the unusual, iconic, and liberally bohemian midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." 

But contradictions make things more interesting. 

South Pasadena is apparently big enough--in its 3.4 square mile radius to sustain two different pizza parlors, only two blocks apart--pizza parlors run by the same family in competition with each other. 

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

This is what I love about South Pasadena--a block of city, the closest thing the city has to a town square, is being overrun by the smells of barbecuing meat and roasting corn while people talk to one another in a friendly fashion. The quiet city transforms into a bustling hub of activity on Thursday evenings for the weekly Farmer's Market. 

There is nothing unique about this S. Pas Farmer's Market--except that I just ran into Frank Fairfield- a bluegrass player I saw this last Sunday, not here, but all the way in Santa Monica at McCabe's Guitar Shop. Even stranger than him being at a S. Pas Farmer's Market is the fact that I saw this same, esoteric player hustling his banjo, his mandolin and his guitar in Old Town this Monday evening. 

To summate--he's been in the Pasadena area twice in the last week even though I didn't even know he existed before Sunday afternoon. I know what you're thinking--maybe he lives in Pasadena. But alas, he does not, as I talked to him and found that he lives on Cahuenga North of Hollywood. 

Yesterday marked the debut of this week's Pasadena Weekly, which bore my name on the cover as my story was the feature of the week. Below the picture of the cute dog pictured in its kennel is my name--Carolyn Neuhausen. Meanwhile, by the time I usually go to Kaldi's the newsstand is usually empty--but not today--today there is still a fresh stack of PWs around--as today they hit the street. My name is literally haunting Pasadena as I type this and my name stares back at me on a paper at my very own local coffeehouse. 

An interesting confluence of events--and it all happened in South Pasadena.  

Running into the Sun...

Last night I drove into the Sun. It set with orange, round fiery brilliance into the palm trees in the west. I don't know why I bring this up, only to say that it was really something quite neat.  

I made a connection with him on Monday, the very night I decided to sever it. And having started the grieving process, all I have to do is sit tight and let it burn down to ashes, which will happen eventually. It just feels really hard right now.  

Is it possible to both value your demons as much as you hate them? I hate my deeply reflective nature almost as much as I nurture it. I see value and know that true beauty lies within attachment and connection, and yet, wish with every fiber of what I am, that I could just let things come and go without caring or getting attached at all. Wishing I didn't feel pain in the depths, it is something unique about me, something that makes me truly an individual. Dare I dream and hope to find disappointment, or is it better to not hope at all? Disappointment for me is the thing that crushes. 

The world however, has opened up new possibilities even in the same way it broke some of them. I no longer believe in waiting to line ducks in a row or be this perfect version of me before searching for what it is that I want. I vow to be open to the possibility that at any given moment something really cool can happen. He could be sitting next to me in traffic or walking in the same park as I. I mean, if it happened more than once, this is only statistical proof that it will happen again, hey?

Jacob Dylan sings, 

I've got my window open wide/

I've got my window open wide/ 

....

Because I know something good this way comes

 

Me, a Romantic? No....

For the first time in a long time, I don't know how to start. There are so many emotions swirling inside of me that I have a hard time placing my finger on one at a time. And they run a range too, from my old standby-disappointment, to happiness, hope, a sense of loss, awe and some things in between. 

The morning of May 23rd, a young man asked a lovely young woman to show him her special place along the river near her home. This spot meant something to her as, years before, she read one of his letters there--at a time when both of these young people were trying to grapple with what they felt for one another and how they wanted to precede about their future. 

She took him down to the river where she glanced out around the surrounding landscape, and by the time she turned around to look at him, he was down on one knee, asking her if she would marry him. 

Ten seconds of surprised silence later she fervently exclaimed "Yes!" and history was made. 

Though I've always felt like Annie was my soul sister, somehow, her marrying makes it feel like she will be more my sister than before. And I will now have a brother in Lee. 

In a short, sweet, and heartfelt ceremony yesterday, Dan married his English rose Cat. On one of those beautiful days, in the way that only Los Angeles can resemble paradise, I found myself at the Greystone Mansion, looking out at the city I love and barely know, blooming roses, lush lawns and an infinite blue sky. With the warm sun and it being late May it would have been probable to have a very hot and uncomfortable day, but it was not, as perhaps the Eye of Heaven looked down on this special day and granted us a breeze. 

Two older people found each other and made a commitment in their first marriage, all after finding one another in speed dating. Cat said though she only had five minutes with him, she knew he was something special. And after dating for awhile they stood there in front of family, friends, coworkers and presumably, the Divine, to pledge that they were filled with faith---in their marriage, in each other, in themselves and in love. 

So friends, I suppose by now it should come as no surprise, that I am an unabashed romantic. It crept up on me, it really did--and I've come to realize that I am hardwired for love--a difficult place to be. Because here's the thing--so many people, especially at my age are looking for tail, or a career, or themselves and most are not looking for commitment or a relationship or that feeling in the heart. But I am, which means that every time someone special comes along, which is typically few and far between, my heart leaps into my throat before I can even try (and fail) to control my heart with my mind. I try desperately to tell myself not to get worked up or to hope that this time, really, things might lead to love. And when they don't I chide myself harshly for even hoping, because I'm the one that ends up hurt in the end. Disappointed and destroyed, after I knew it wouldn't be what I wanted it to be. 

After an amount of time dedicated to self pity and "poor me" commentary, I pick myself up, as a warrior does, and march blindly, and full of faith into the future that is my own. I continue to leap, though as Gavin DeGraw says,

Mounting the trail

but you got it in sight

sometimes I'm always jumping 

hoping I'm not afraid of heights 

Leaping into Faith, Wrestling with God and Finding Certainty

I will be reposting some old blogs of mine from xanga to here. I do this because these are pieces that either lend more insight into who I am, or I'm fiercely proud of them. Or both. 

July 22, 2008----My personal philosophy

Faith Leaping, God-Wrestling and Certainty-Finding

I was talking with a friend of mine today and I came upon something that is very truthful and I've been giving it more thought throughout the day. 

We often hear that there are circumstances in life where we have to take a leap of faith; I believe, however, when you really think about it that everything we do is a leap of faith. 

When talking with a friend and saying something that might or will probably bring about conflict, we leap; we place our faith in the fact that the friendship can overcome the conflict. When we are small and we go from Pre-K to Kindergarten, we leap; other people tell us that we are capable and ready to move on, but to a certain extent, at least that 1% of ourselves, our internal, unique, independent voice that can't be guaranteed by others, no matter how many times our parents and teachers encourage us, we leap, simply believing that we really are capable of moving on to the next level of schooling. 

No one guarantees us happiness or love or success in life; to think about it, no one even guarantees us that we can be brave enough to know and love ourselves; no one guarantees us that we will live the life we dream of. There is no guarantee that we will ever fulfill our potential or ever come to know, while we are living, the immensity of who we are. But we march on, literally blindly, with only the faith that we can move forward into our lives. We simply believe we can, and so we do. 

Everything we do is a leap of faith, because no matter how much life experience we gain, or how much history we accumulate, or how much encouragement we receive, in the end it is only us, our own core selves that push us into the future. And history and precedent cannot, in any way guarantee anything, let alone something positive about the future, because the future is always different and ever-changing. 

I wrestle with God on a daily basis and sometimes He (or She or They) win and I have to submit to Their will; sometimes I win and I can shout in the face of God and tell Her (or He or They) that I am in control and that they are foolish indulgences of the imagination; that nothing is above me and that I make my own fate. 

But this is what I do know: I know that there is a magnificently good and kind and loving and nurturing and caring divinity, because the basis of faith is believing without seeing, going blind and leaping. And since everything we do in life is leaping, it makes only logical sense, at the least, to me that we should leap and believe the best in life and the best in people and nature, in the future, in the divine and, most of all, ourselves.

Details

Often it is the details in life, the extra $5 bill you find in an old pair of jeans, the feeling of soil on your hands, that perfect cup of coffee that someone left in the coffee pot that makes a difference. Of this, I am certain. 

While the cruise I recently went on wasn't all I thought it should be, the details that carried me and my two gal pals through those fabulous five days was what made the difference. 

When I was in Nassau, my fall lead to a bloody knee, which lead to a vendor who soaked a cloth for me to wipe the blood away, and who also gave me a free bandage. 

The plane ride to Ft. Lauderdale found me sitting next to a guy who was kind and who coincidentally enough, had some background in The Biz. We sat chatting, and at a time, much like any other, where I find myself growing ever more anxious of my future in terms of writing and work, he had the nicest words for me. 

"Figure out what you want to do, plug away at it, and you'll make your way." 

All things countless people have told me, but listening to his life story and how he got involved from being a risk assessor in Missouri for an insurance company, to owning his own entertainment insurance division really stoked my fire. Here, sitting next to me was a man who's life turned out quite nicely, all from strange and humble beginnings. 

Had I been sitting next to someone else, I wouldn't have heard those words with the same conviction, the same belief that stretched across the armrest located between us, to enter my brain where I would take it to heart. 

Back in Ft. Lauderdale, unbeknownst to us, the restaurants near our hotel sponsored music nights, which meant I got to hear some great bluesy guitar and groove with my friends. The music filled the air, making the night that much better. Did I mention there was a delicious ice cream place just down the road from our hotel? Didn't plan that one. Nor did I plan that a very nice gentleman at the hotel would cut down coconuts for both Anne and I. I didn't plan drinking from coconuts, but there I was, sun bathing after swimming, doing a completely tropical thing.

It's the details that made it so cool. 

This Is My World

I sit here in this cafe typing when I look up and see something hanging from the wall. A cardboard frog is attached to a cardboard crest which announces "This Is My World." And as I sit here with my fingers hitting the keys, I realize this is a perfect way to start. 

From our earliest years we are raised in a kaleidoscope of structures; the family structure, the religious, the school, the government, and perhaps most permeating--the gender and culture roles that surround us. 

The hardest thing, or at least the hardest thing for me, is to find where I fit in these varying worlds while constantly constructing a personal truth of my own. I'm not knocking these structures. They serve as vital roles and make things interesting as we now have a world that is filled with different schools, religions, governments, cultures, etc. 

But when does the one leave off and the next begin? It comes as some surprise to me that I am a people pleaser of sorts. I don't like getting pushed around and if something really offends me I don't back down or bend to others' whims. But amidst all of the variations I put out there with the silently asked question of "is this okay? Have I scared you off? Do you approve of me?" I try to feel my way to a more original and truthful version of myself. 

In the end, it is I, and no one else who is living this life, and therefore I owe it to myself to be the most, well, of me. I believe Sartre called this "being authentic," and as one who has strived to do just that over the last few years I can say that it hurts like hell and is a road full of pain, but it's also kind of cool. 

Some people, as I was reminded on Monday night are wired for particular things; I am wired for monogamy. I am wired for emotion, for hope and optimism, for anxiety and nervousness, for personal cynicism, dreaminess and romanticism. All of these combine to be uniquely me and I have recently tried to refrain from asking others for their opinion about pieces of my world. Because, after all, this is my world. 

Beaches and Revelations

I have just returned from paradise. What more does one need, but a sandy beach, waves lapping the shoreline and friends?

Parting is always hard, and it finally hit me at 5 am this morning, that once again my best friend Anne, is on the other side of the country. 

We have talked about how hard this past year has been; this year out of college has been so dramatically hard and sad for most of us. And while commiserating makes me feel better in the moment, I can't help but feel bereft of such a big part of my life as I lay awake at 5 am this morning. Is the early morning insomnia an effect of jet lag and Eastern time zone changes, or is it something more?

I guess in the end, I've had a lot of happy memories and a lot of laughter in those golden days of school; I don't laugh as much as I used to. And I hope that one day soon life becomes as happy or happier than the college days. I refuse to believe that the best days of my life are behind me. 

So here is to starting anew, to keeping old memories but letting go of their burdensome weight, their weight to impact the present and the future. 

And here is a wish that I might see Emily and Anne before Emily, my first close girl friend, gets married next April. Oh how we used to be carefree girls; when the sun flashed across our sunburned and golden skin against beaches of white, I realized, we're rapidly becoming the women we'd hope to grow into. 

My Promise

The words didn’t part my mouth or breach my lips before they were something I lived by. While I hadn’t at this point, told someone besides myself, I had made a promise to look after Miss Kitty; I had made a promise to make sure that she had shelter, water and food. And I wasn’t going back on that word.

This promise was silent. It was one I communicated to Miss Kitty on a daily basis, as I refilled her food dish and made sure she had enough clean water. With every stroke I gave her, I wanted her to relax in the knowledge that she was no longer alone, and that she could give her daily care to a mature adult who was looking out for her.

I don’t know what it was that touched me about her so much. Just an average, run-of the mill grey tabby cat, her only unusual and pretty markings were the cream running around each eye and the vertical eye of striping on one side of her belly. Almost as if I had called her to me, at a time way back in January when I was thinking of taking care of an animal, she showed up, sitting in the sun on a chair underneath my window. From that moment on, I was hooked, feeling she was meant to be mine.

Her small feet made me think she was female, along with her expanding belly. I wanted her so badly to come inside and warm herself on carpet because I feared for her safety in freezing temperatures and dampness. She hooked me with her bold nature, the way she would inch herself inside my apartment and stick her neck out, popping her head up to look around furniture and room corners.

It wasn’t long before this average feral tabby was talking, meowing and demanding more attention from me. They weren’t cries for more food, as I knew she ‘d had her fill; they were cries for me. For hands to pet her and make her start purring.

She hooked me when she started getting desperate, her little face showing in the back sliding door, her petite feet fiercely banging on the glass as she stood on her high back hocks, trying to guilt me into opening the door and petting her.

I made a promise to this cat. I made a promise to the nice folks that did their best to have her fixed, instead of making me wait an extra two weeks for the next clinic. I told them, as I told her, silently, with petting and with the way I looked at her, that she was mine and I was hers; I would take care of her to best of my ability and I would make sure her basic needs were met. I pride myself on being a straight shooter, of meaning what I say, and this was one promise I meant. It’s one promise I mean. And it’s one promise that I have recently started saying out loud.

My hand lightly scratching her back, in my soft, high pitched voice, “Miss Kitty, you’re mine. And I’ll look after you and feed you and pet you, because you’re my cat now.”

The fact that in the end I am wiling, though not looking forward, to living alone so that I can keep her instead of my options of giving her to a barn or farm, or unthinkable to me, the Humane Society, shows two things. It shows that I have a compassionate and large heart, and it shows, that while I may not know myself as well as I should, or as well as I had thought, I know that animals need to be a part of my life.

So, Miss Kitty and I are together, and will be moving on with our lives at a new location.

An Experiment in Love

I saw love over the last week of April, 2009. 

Love came in the form of over three generations of geographically scattered family coming together to mourn for a distant relative and to support a close one. Love showed up more than 80 years after family left from Italy for promise in the U.S.

Love came when Donna, my uncle's ex-girlfriend insisted on being with him when he learned his medical diagnosis; he was stricken with throat cancer, the spring of last year. Love was when Donna drove said Uncle to the hospital, even though, years before, they'd been through a traumatic break-up. 

Love shone in every action of a healthy 79 year old man who diligently looked after his ailing wife. Love was there through hip fractures, and breaking collar bones and dissipating brain function and countless hospital visits.

Love was there when two gal pals saw each other for the first time in a year; they embraced and walked stride for stride and spoke word for word as if time hadn't passed. 

This is love; so don't fucking tell me it doesn't exist!