Being First

Received an email this week that mentioned Brock Homes had built the first level three Earth Craft House in the city of ATL, which reminded me of another story I heard on TV a few months ago where the owners of the Eco Manor were stating that they were the first LEED certified Green Energy Home in ATL. I built a Green Energy House in 2002 in the ATL before there were certifications for this and that. So, it got me to wondering why everyone was so eager to say they were the first? It is interesting that when someone does something that they think is so unique, they want to claim that they were the first. But why? Is it not enough just to do something good?

I heard it said many times this year when Hillary was running for President that she was the first. But when I was 10, my Dad took me to Asheboro, NC to hear Shirley Chisholm, an African-American woman who was running for President, speak. That was the same year, my grandmother taught me about recycling and source separation. Was she the first to recycle? I also heard about lots of firsts while watching the Olympics. Phelps was the first to win 8 Gold. I watched Mark Spitz when he was the first to win 7 gold. The Phelps Olympics had a 50 M race that didn't exist during Spitz's time so he only got 7 tries. I have been told that the pool is deeper now and has least resistance than during Spitz's time. The swim suits are different too, better suited for faster times. I was excited and energized by both wins not because they were the first, but because, it was exciting. Why do you think we have this preoccupation to be the first? If anyone has thoughts about this, I would love to hear them.

Good 'Ol Girls

Visited Eddie's Attic, an ATL music venue for singer/songwriters. It's where John Mayer, Sugarland, Billy Pilgrim, and countless other singer/songwriters got traction right before their big break and subsequent record deals. Tonight's show was 2 women singer/songwriters and 2 women novelists. When the record companies in Nashville dumped the singer/songwriters, they called each other and found a new purpose for their work. They are touring the country with a social commentary, poetic monologues called Good 'Ol Girls, sort of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues crosses Lily Tomlin's In Search of Intelligent Signs of the Universe for southern red neck girls.

Published novelists Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle wrote the monologues in 1999 and incorporated songs written by Nashville singer/songwriters, Marshall Chapman and Matraca Berg. The show was about all types of women from all types of places, Good 'Ol Girls that are real survivors. The NY Times has called the show a "feminist literary country music review." The thing I really enjoyed about these 4 women together is that it takes master Nashville storytellers, Berg (six #1 Billboard Hits by artists like Reba McEntire, Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Linda Ronstadt, Deena Carter, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, and Faith Hill) and Chapman who has written songs for Emmy Lou Harris, Conway Twitty, Joe Cocker, and Jimmy Buffett and award winning novelitsts Smith and McCorkle out of their normal routine, while repurposing their words and music to show that no matter how different we think we are, we are all really the same. We share the same hopes, the same fears, the same dreams and the same heartbreak. We just experience it in different ways. As one of my all-time favorite poets, Audre Lorde, said "“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” This is really what I got out of the evening. It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

As I was leaving, I bumped into my old friend Happy from Chattanooga, turns out Happy went to Vanderbilt with Chapman and they have remained friends over the years. She introduced me to Chapman, Chapman's husband and then Berg. It was Berg that kept me intrigued, talking about the Nashville Music Industry, being a woman in that industry and living your life as an aging musician. Berg told a story of how young the Nashville establishment thought she was when she recorded her first song at age 26. Now, she is considered a dinosaur, and just barely over 40. She said that today, if you are not under 20, the record labels don't notice you. After seeing all of the baby boomers at this venue, I told her I was trying to get word to Simon Cowell about my idea of Senior Idol. For all those that tried to make it in Nashville, Memphis, and LA and were rejected by the Good 'Ol Boys, their time has come!

Loving Kindness

I am always running around like a bat out of hell. All of my friends keep saying that I need to learn how to relax and take time to become more centered. My grandmother always said "idle hands make idle minds." I guess that is something I took very seriously and carried with me throughout my life. This is probably why I always have my day filled with activities and seem to work 24/7. I love being positive and upbeat. I love that feeling so much that I don't really want to come down. One day I was in an airport, missed my flight, instead of feeling frustrated, I said out loud, I would love to take two hours and get a massage. I walked about 50 feet and there was a spa in the RDU airport. I had never seen a spa in an airport so I thought I had willed this to happen. Ten minutes later, I am flat on the massage table and the masseuse, very intuitive healer, said , "I don't know what you do for a living, but what ever it is, you need to stop it NOW! "She then asked when I had my last massage. I replied, "3 days earlier". She said she had never seen anyone so tight and that I was headed for serious repercussions if I didn't change something. This got me to thinking about all of my friends comments to take time for me each day and relax. As soon as I returned home, I bought the 10-minute meditation book and searched for a Buddhist temple that I could visit to start on my new journey. A week later, I found my self in NM visiting a Buddhist temple where they had numerous meditation sessions throughout the day. I walked up, read all of the rules; you must be quiet, take your shoes off, do not sit on pillow that has white flag, enter only after the bells have rung, etc, etc. Whenever I see rules, I am certain, I am going to break one of them, not from disrespect, but because I can't remember them all at once. I took my shoes off and entered this temple only after the bells rang. Of course, I was the first one there, I am always early. There was no one there to watch so I looked around and saw all of these pillows aligned perfectly every twelve inches apart all around the perimeter of the room. I was looking for one that did not have the flag and was not near one that had a flag. There was a flag on almost every other one. So I looked for one that is closest to the restroom because I am sure I will need to go in the midst of the meditation. I sit down on a single pillow and look out into the room so that I can assess all of the others, one by one, as they enter the room. I am hoping to pick up some tips on how this is done. As I watch, people enter one by one, hands folded at chest. Each one bows to the Buddha sculpture prominently displayed on the table at the entry vestibule. That's when I realize I have already done something wrong, as I did not enter hands folded or bow to the Buddha. I looked around for security cameras to see if anyone captured my mistake. Couldn't find any, so it looks like I may have escaped embarrassment. As everyone is taking their seat on the floor, I couldn't help but notice how unfriendly everyone was. Just as I had that thought, a man dressed like the Dali Lama knelt down beside me and whispered in my ear, "at our noon meditation, we face the wall, not the people in the room." Boy, was that embarrassing. All my life, I have been taught to face people as they enter the room, make eye contact, and watch their body language. You really can learn so much from the body language. I quickly turn around and face the wall. It was literally 12 inches in front of me. I couldn't imagine how I was going to stare at this wall for 1 hour with only a few inches between me and the wall. I did it anyway. An older, very new age, looking woman sat next to me. She was one of the experts with the flag on her pillow. I noticed, instead of just one pillow, she had three. She was sitting on her knees with all of the pillows resting comfortably between her two thighs. All I could think of is how I needed three pillows, because my right foot had already fallen to sleep on the one hard pillow and I was only 5 minutes into my meditation. Then I noticed all of these scratches on the wall. It really looked like the temple was in need of a paint job. Wonder who is the caretaker here? Back to meditation, I am supposed to not be thinking but turning my mind off. I started practicing one of the techniques I had learned in my 10 minute meditation book. I would take a deep breath in through my nose and exhale through my mouth. This seemed so easy in the comfort of my own home, but with all of these meditation experts next to me, it seemed like I was being way too loud. So then I kept thinking about how deep and loud my breaths seemed. I would look through my peripheral vision and see if the two women on each side of me were noticing how loud my breathing was? If they noticed, it didn't seem like they minded. Once again, I had veered away from my meditation, thinking when I was supposed to be turning my mind off. I felt a sudden sharp pain in my right leg from my thigh all the way down to my foot. I tried to shift quietly but in a room with no noise, again, it seemed very loud. I could not help it, if I didn't shift, my leg was going to need amputation when I finished meditating. I then, realized, that I had to go to the restroom. How was I going to stand up and walk by all of these people while they were being so still. I kept telling myself, I could hold it. Back to breathing... I decided to take a small breath in and exhale more gently. I repeated this several times when I felt like I may be having a panic attack. I needed to have deeper more controlled breaths than the short shallow ones but I was afraid I was making too much noise. That was when the lady next to me shifted slightly so I rearranged my entire body on the pillow again. This meditation was hard work. I haven't felt so uncomfortable since I had to recite a poem in front of my entire kindergarten class. Then I thought of my last trip to Hawaii, how warm the sun felt beating down on my skin, how beautiful the rainbows were after an afternoon rain, how friendly and kind the natives are everyday. It seemed to me that the native Hawaiians practice loving kindness as an everyday way of life. Why was I having to seek it out in an awkward and uncomfortable setting? What makes the Hawaii natives everyday practice of loving kindness so difficult to achieve in my own daily life? These are all questions I didn't have answers to? Then I heard three bells ring...Thank God was all I could think. This hour of torture is finally behind me. Then the lady next to me, says, Are You Ok? It seems like you could not find comfort in stillness. I said, if you only knew. She proceeded to tell me ways to find comfort in various positions on the 3 pillow configuration. I thanked her as I exited the temple, hands folded at chest and bowing to the Buddha on the way out.