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Old Habits Need Loyal Friends

I am currently suffering from a minor case of a writer's worst nightmare, that is, tendonitis of the wrist. I experienced my first bout during my sophomore year of college. With the help of an ergonomic keyboard and an awkward tan-colored wrist brace, the fatigue cleared up after a few months and the remainder of college was trouble-free in the wrist department. However, the tendonitis has returned in the past year, particularly in the past few months. Since then, I have been searching for the precise causes 0f this new round of wrist fatigue.

My search has led me to many causes, but one bottom line: Habits. Bad ones. For example, I find myself doing about 98% of my typing on my laptop keyboard--a notoriously dangerous workstation for one's wrists. What's more, I tend to write on said keyboard in bed, slouched against my headboard and a stack of pillows. This is also a major ergonomic no-no. And finally, I hold a pencil incorrectly, with four fingers instead of three. Since my handwriting load is currently much greater due to my summer German course, I'm convinced that the bad pencil-holding habit I formed in Kindergarten is now coming back to haunt me.

So, I'm trying to correct my keyboard, posture, and handwriting habits. The latter is by far the most difficult. Every time I pick up a pencil I unthinkingly grip four fingers around the top. This is the way I have been doing it my whole life, and honestly, I would have probably died an old woman with a four-finger pencil grip had this wrist thing not flared up. I never thought of it as a bad thing, so I never took much note of it before. Even now, it is usually not until I feel a twinge of pain in my wrist that I realize my bad habit and correct it with that darn, uncomfortable three-finger grip.

Today a precious friend confessed that I have a few bad habits in our relationship. These are significant things, too--things that hurt his feelings. After my friend gently provided a few examples of these mishaps, I (naturally) started to tear up. Firstly, I was so regretful to have hurt my friend in general. And secondly, as he cited a few examples, a series of additional examples of related incidents raced through my mind. I really did have these bad habits that he was pointing out, and I was completely oblivious to them and their impact on my friend until that moment. My watery eyes turned into apologetic sobs, and my friend generously offered comfort, forgiveness, and the reassurance of his loyalty to our friendship.

I was deeply sad, and rather embarrassed by my actions. I even thought to myself, "Is this who I have become? A person who makes her dearest friends feel like this?" Yet even as my bad habits brought dismay, I experienced a strange sense of relief with the news of my tendencies. "At least I see them now." I thought to myself. "At least I recognize them so I can fix them." Had this friend not had the courage and care to point them out to me, they could have quietly worn away at our friendship, and my character, without any sort of awareness on my part.

My old habits need a loyal friend like mine. Otherwise, it is simply so easy for me to overlook them. To take my actions for granted. The pain that my friend experiences as a result of my habitual carelessness is sort of like the pain I feel in my wrist these days. It is an unfortunate reminder that I need to change my old ways. With each patient reminder that my actions have negative consequences, I am aware of them myself, and I am increasingly motivated to change them for the better.

So, for my tendonitis: a tacky brace. For my friendship mishaps: a graceful, honest companion.

From My Dream of A Common Language

I spent the evening at ArtXchange, a gallery in downtown Seattle dedicated to promoting cultural exchange through the art they showcase. As I studied the featured exhibit by Deborah Kapoor against the captivating, meditative chant of a live Indian music group, I kept thinking about how my love of art is so bound up with spirituality.

In the opening stanzas of "Origins and History of Consciousness," a poem by Adrienne Rich (it is among my favorite poems of all time), she characterizes the "true nature of poetry" as "The drive to connect./ The dream of a common language." These simple phrases capture the real quality of poetry like no other description I have ever encountered. I would also apply the description to other mediums of artist expression, including the various mediums I enjoyed tonight. Literary, visual, and performing art captures me because it is a tangible form of our common human yearning for...for something beyond systematic grammar and simple cohesive reason. We need meter, clay, melodies and creativity to convey what our systematic, straight-forward prose cannot: something more. It is out of our dream of a common language that we create and engage art of all kinds.

And it is out of a "dream of a common language" that I pray. That I meditate. That I seek God in metaphors and old rituals. My spirituality pours out of the same longing that brings me to art--a longing to connect with reality in a way that transcends the division and limitations of ordinary words.

Both art and spirituality pull me beyond myself into the realm of this common language--a language beyond words that feels so much more Real than a lot of the talk I hear all day long.

Condemned to Greatness

Adam said, "I've wondered why a man of your knowledge would work a desert hill place."

"It's because I haven't the courage," said Samuel. "I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name--but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world."

"I'd think there are degrees of greatness," Adam said.

"I don't think so," said Samuel. "That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other--cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad to chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be."

I love this passage from Steinbeck's East of Eden. It's maybe my favorite of the whole book. When I read it for the first time, I was captured by Samuel's recognition that greatness--which in my mind is really the result of anyone's fervent and loyal pursuit of some vocation--comes at a cost. It is easy to glorify our goals and aims in life while overlooking the fact that a "yes" to one thing is often (if not always) a "no" to something else. I'd like to think that it isn't as black-and-white as Samuel suggests; that real community and companionship is possible as we take on the individual responsibility necessary for major vocational commitments; that life infrequently occurs in this "either/or" fashion.

At the same time, I deeply sympathize with his words. For me, a "yes" to all the possibilities at Harvard is necessarily a type of "no" to the present life I lead here at home in Seattle. New friendships will come, but older friendships must take new shape. In order for new projects to arise, old ones must be finished or set aside. I currently face all the "costs" of going to Harvard while anxiously awaiting the relatively unknown possibilities on the other side of the country.

I am quite lonely in this transition, knowing that it is my choice and will necessarily cost me some of the things I cherish so much right now. There is some comfort in the fact that I believe we are all condemned to greatness. It is my time to "suffer over the choosing," but we all will. This is life.

I don't think of myself as a very courageous person, but I am practicing. I'm choosing, and I'm trying.