On Talking to Strangers

     Today I walked to the river. It's easy to forget that I live so close; after 15 minutes on a bike or about 30 on foot I can smell the blackberry bushes and hear the water while watching out for those packs of zooming bicyclists in their bright spandex outfits. I didn't plan on walking to the river. In fact, the only reason I got up well before I had to leave for work was the Internet. I have been waiting for an important email regarding my application to be a Glimpse correspondent during my upcoming stay in Ireland. I was told that finalists would be announced in July. Today is July 31st. Remembering this, I got out of bed and checked my email. Still nothing. What with one roommate moved out to DC, the other away housesitting, my ended relationship now 6 weeks in the past, no mail coming because it is Sunday, and no Glimpse announcement, today could have been the kind of lonely and disappointing day that I dread. But I walked to the river, and in so many simple ways my life is better for it.
     There were people along the river. I met an elderly couple who walk their American Bulldogs out there every day. We talked for a while about them and me and their dogs and the families of wild turkeys who live out by the river. They were happy to share with me, and pointed out the dark shape of a turkey up ahead in the dry yellow grass. I don't remember exactly how our conversation got past hello, but I know it started with hello. Isn't that how almost all great and small relationships and life intersections start? That nice lady said hello and now I know that there are turkeys along the river and that American Bulldogs are calm, loving dogs who weight about 85 pounds and that there exists in this world a happy healthy old couple who walk their dogs to the river together every day. I aspire to be like them. I wonder how long ago it was when they first said hello to each other...
     I passed them eventually and kept on walking to find that there were blackberries along the river. I tiptoed and picked my way over the round river pebbles and thorny low branches to pick some for breakfast. Wild blackberries for breakfast, just like that! I consider any day on which I can eat wild blackberries along the river a good day. They made me think of the blackberries that grow out by the barn, and the people I always see pulled over to the side of the road so they can pick some. Maybe I will talk to them, too.
     There were friends riding horses along the river. I had turned my back to the water and was beginning to head home when I saw those big four-legged shapes off to my left, down the dusty stone-strewn path. Two ladies were taking a Sunday trail ride together, and I waved and walked over to them to introduce myself as a fellow horse owner. I used to think that this was considered bothering people, but I said hello anyway. They halted their horses to stop and chat and told me about the best places to park a horse trailer when I decide to go riding along the river. I told them that if I was not Ireland-bound in a week I would get their numbers and come riding with them next time. Imagine that- I could find trail riding friends that easily, just there along the river like the blackberries.
     And of course there were turkeys along the river, just like the old couple had said. Concerned-looking hens clucked and herded their chicks along the sides of the bike path, and the chicks reminded me of the big flock of little kids who play on the sides of my street some afternoons.
     There was life along the river. After that first conversation with the elderly couple, I greeted everybody I saw. Who knows what they have to offer? A quick conversation, a warm greeting, useful information, perhaps the beginning of a new friendship. A smile and a hello can bring about any of these. Spending time with my next door neighbor and her small son is how I learned she has a sister in Dublin who is married to a professor at Trinity College. I am now corresponding with him via email and he offered to show me around the historic campus when I get to Ireland. Taking up my other neighbor's offer to fix my loudly clattering bicycle led to a long laugh-filled conversation in his driveway and free tune ups for both my bike and my roommate's. Living in my community- talking to my neighbors, greeting people on the street, going for a morning walk to the river- is perhaps the best way to expand my horizons. When an empty house and an empty email inbox left me feeling lonely and unfulfilled this morning, I went out into my community and delved into this place where I have put down a few roots but perhaps not enough.

We were strangers 4 years ago. In Ireland I'm adding
 WWOOFing and maybe Glimpse to the list of crazy
things she's gotten me into. 

     Come to think of it, even this Glimpse program I'm waiting to hear about is something I learned of during a face-to-face conversation with a friend, when I felt like "wasting" time socializing in between classes instead of doing my homework alone. And this friend is somebody who was once a stranger until one of us said hello.
     This lesson is perhaps the most important one I will be taking with me when, a week from today, I get on that plane to begin my five and a half months away from home, far on the other side of the Atlantic in Ireland, surrounded by strangers. I cannot wait to meet them.

Scheduling the End of a Life

    When at the beginning of the summer I became so busy teaching riding lessons that I actually had to keep a schedule, I bought a planner and have since been living by it. People want to schedule a lesson: I check in my planner for a space to write it down. I need to get a haircut: I check in my planner, find some time for myself, and write it down. I'm busy. I have a lot of things on my plate. So I have a planner.

    The most recent addition to my planner is an appointment next Tuesday, August 2nd, with my veterinarian.  I stood in the corner of my parents' front pasture with him and my father, talking in a businesslike manner about my work schedule, his availability, etc, and I wrote the appointment in my planner. Next to me was my aging burro Eva, completely unaware that I had just scheduled her death in a convenient spot in my schedule. Just one more thing on the list. 

    Eva is an old burro. She has a severe case of founder, probably brought on by Cushing's Disease, and she has very little time before the rotating bones in her hooves puncture through the skin and completely debilitate her. 

    Usually when people have to put down a pet, they talk about how the pet is a friend, how they remember when the pet was a puppy or kitten or whatnot, and how closely bonded they are. It is not so with me and Eva. In fact, I know very little about her and her life before she came to me, already an elderly and stubborn old burro who was at first reluctant to put up with my ideas. It once took me 40 minutes to lead her through the round pen gate, and she scared off the first farrier who tried to work with her. She now stands and leads quietly, but with her dignity. I am always aware that she has simply chosen to become (mostly) docile in her old age, and that she accepts me as her caregiver without depending on me. 

     Eva was rounded up in the wild by the Bureau of Land Management as part of their regular population control program, and adopted out with two other burros, Banner and Glory. When their adoptive owner abandoned them, they came to me through a BLM agent with whom I happened to be acquainted. I will never know how long Eva was with her old owner or what kind of relationship they had. I will never know what it was like to be rounded up from a wild herd and taken into human society, but I figure it must have been hard if she was already along in years when this all happened. Perhaps Eva had offspring of her own. She may have been a leader among her herd, or she may have fallen at the very bottom. She has had her own long life, and a wealth of experience I will never know. Therefore, I have always had to balance my role as a handler responsible for her training and handling with my role as a youth deferring to an elder. I can't be condescending toward Eva. She's not my baby. 

     It seems strange that after all that has happened in Eva's life, she ended up in a front yard in West Sacramento, with a 21 year old college student scheduling her death into a planner full of horseback riding lessons to teach and personal appointments to keep. Only birth is equivalent in significance and intimacy. I have known Eva for the very last 6 years of her life, and I will be the last major person to have influenced it. I hope my presence has been a good one for her, and I will be giving her as many carrots and peppermints as she could possibly want in her last 5 days before it comes time to cross off one more of those many items written in my planner. Bless you Eva, and good bye.  

My Battle with Facebook Syndrome

      Facebook syndrome... this blog is the beginning of my recovery. Online social networking has had a remarkable influence on my social habits. When I recently noticed that I was thinking of my life as a series of status updates, and feeling as though the interesting or fulfilling things I did in a day were less worthwhile if I did not post something on my wall for every one of my 378 "friends" to see, I realized that I had Facebook syndrome. I have an insidious, contagious disease that makes me think that I need to share every detail of my life with everyone, or else be left behind. If not for Facebook, would I tell that one out of state guy who I met twice that I got an awesome massage today? Does every last one of my current and former classmates need to know what my GPA is? Chances are no. But the constant stream of information I can project into my news feed gives me a continuous opportunity to look cool to as many people as possible. No, I really don't need to tell that guy about my awesome massage, but if he sees that information maybe he'll "like" it. Pressing that like button is almost interacting! It perpetuates a friendship that doesn't exist, much like pressing 2 to continue perpetuates "conversations" with automated customer support menus on the telephone.  

       Publishing everything we could possibly wish to share about our lives does not actually make us more interesting. I feel about my Facebook statuses the same way I feel about the Heidegger and Foucault and Sartre books that were, until two weeks ago, sitting on my shelf; I accumulate them because having them makes me feel smarter, but it is only a projection. If I keep books on my shelf simply to show off, then I am better off without them (and the used bookstores paid pretty well for a few of those texts, while my IQ does not, in fact, seem to have lowered since I parted with them). Likewise, despite my addict's convictions telling me otherwise, my life will not become less interesting if I stop posting about it on the internet. Yet I crave, I yearn, I NEED to tell people what I am up to, because Facebook syndrome tells me that if not everybody knows about my last delightful day trip or brilliant epiphany, it may as well not have happened. I suppose if it's that important to share, I have to actually pick up a phone and contact people, the way I did earlier today when I called an old friend simply to tell her about a funny license plate she would like. We talked for an hour. 

        When communication is directed at people, and not just at a nebulous cyber audience, it starts to mean more. I think more about what I say. After all, would I really have told my ex-boyfriend everything I posted on Facebook as a publicly passive-aggressive way to let him know how I was doing after he broke up with me? I felt like a tabloid star when I changed my relationship status back to "single." And I felt the burning need to post, and then repost 3 times, every awesome thing I did without him to rub it in his face. I would never do that to him in person. I would never call somebody to say "Guess what, I am having the best vacation without you!" But Facebook syndrome, that insidious disease, made me post every little detail about that weekend, just in case it hit his news feed. I didn't have to take responsibility for it- after all, I wasn't really talking to him. 

       The online fallout from my breakup helped push me to leave behind the habit of self-indulgence I developed during my years on Xanga, Myspace, and Facebook. I don't wish to seem like I'm picking on these sites, because social networking has revolutionized business, advertising, event organizing, and so many other aspects of social life. Perhaps Facebook is like alcohol. Some of us are just predisposed to using it poorly, and most of us overindulge at least for a while.