Past due a long ramble, my soul's been more restless than usual lately, less patient with routine for the sake of sustenance, responsibility over desire, survival over living. I suppose it's sometimes just too painful to put down in words, the solution too disruptive to even contemplate, but I can't stop thinking about the waste that follows just settling, the loss that is each day spent laboring towards other people's wealth for safe shelter, pleasant amenities, health insurance and at least the illusion of stability.
Life has a way of reminding us how short it is when death comes suddenly, as it has recently in my little sphere, to young and old in different ways. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow, but we're a hopeful sort, or at least I seem to be, so we schedule our mammograms and swallow our dreams in favor of the quiet nobility that is getting up and going to work every day for the greater good even when we hate it. It's the responsible, and therefore loving, thing to do.
Yesterday, I went to TedXEmory, primarily because I was restless and in need of new insight, maybe even guidance. I was impressed by the great job the organizers did and by the fact that the effort at least appeared to be student-driven. As a seasoned fellow conference organizer, I would give them three pieces of advice: let people know their parking options ahead of time, eliminate the video TED Talks and make snacks available. I would have gladly paid to park at the hospital right across the street had I known how long (and uphill) the walk from on-campus parking was going to be, and we can see all the TED videos we want online. I left during the first break, hungry, and feeling like I'd gotten what I came seeking.
I hate the way the answer always surprises me when I pay some attention to the questions, but I loved the first two talks. I went, not planning to spend the whole day there, but wanting to see what CNN's Josh Levs (@joshlevscnn), scheduled to be the second speaker, had to say. He wasn't kidding when he said on Facebook, "My TedX talk... is going to include dream-chasing, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, termites and the sitcom Friends." He spoke on the theme of following our dreams, suggesting he had done so almost obsessively, but pointing out that it's important to remember that they're plural and that we follow more than one at a time, so that even when we're settling, it's to be used as a platform to propel us in the direction of one dream or another. He illustrated this with the story from "Friends" in which Phoebe, relegated to bringing nothing but the cups and ice to the party, made the cups and ice the biggest and best thing about the event. Be the cups and ice. Yep. I'm down with all that. On track so far. Life gives you lemons, then make lemonade or add vodka. Then he sprung the surprise ending in which he showed seriously cute pictures of his son and spoke of his birth, suggesting that in fact our first dream is to be held and loved and that it's a dream that never leaves us, that we carry through all our days. Oh, yeah. That. Oops.
I left at the first break and went looking for my sons or some contingent thereof, easily finding Middle Son and The Youngest who live close by. We went to eat. The lobster roll at Yeah Burger in Virginia Highlands and spending time with them comforted me. For now, it's Easter Sunday and I can't help but remember the Easter Sunday in 2006 when I wrote about rising early to take Middle Son to the Amtrak station for his day-long trip back to college in New Orleans, how much has changed since then, how much is still the same and how I've let it stay that way.
Tonight on HBO Season 2 of David Simon's Treme will begin, set there, in New Orleans, back then in the years immediately following the flood, and I'll be watching, still here, now; and that's weird and somehow wrong.
I have only one more thing to say and it's about link love. Now that Treme is back with new episodes, if you're watching it, you best be following what those smart New Orleanian Simon officianados are saying over Back of Town (@backoftown), and when you're done with that check out Lolis Eric Elle's Inside Treme blog and Watching Treme. Go. Now. Read. Y'all.
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