Last Week #13 | Roots & Branches

This weekend, I spent three days in the Adirondacks at the Great Camp Sagamore Roots & Branches Music Workshop. (You can learn more about it here.) I’ve never been more nervous than I was the night before and day of our departure. My boyfriend Eli was to spend the weekend at the camp, learning and doing music things, while I was tasked with documenting the weekend and making a video at the end of it. I think it’s safe to say we were both a little terrified. Him, because he wasn’t (and hasn’t been) sure of how he feels about music lately. I in turn felt bad for forcing him into it, and I felt nervous because of the endless marquee of what ifs scrolling through my mind. What if people think I’m weird for lurking around with a camera? What if people think we’re that weird couple that are too attached and can't ever spend a moment apart?  What if I have a panic attack? What if I don’t make them a great, or even good, video? What if I feel uncomfortable? 

 I’ve been on three very different types of trips over the past month. The first was Philadelphia, where four of us were constantly together, doing activities that we chose, facing the days full of bright sunlight and the city and loud, boisterous, college-like activity. The second was the lake with my sister. This is practically the same thing as being at home, except the two of us had to learn how to live in harmony without our electronic devices (and significant other) as a buffer. The challenges were small, and the trip was serene. The last was this trip to the Adirondacks. I think it falls somewhere between Philadelphia and the lake on my scale of anxiety. It wasn’t as action packed as Philly, or as serene as the lake (as no place but home ever can be). There was a serenity to it, sure, and a peace that came with being with Eli, but we also had our fair share of challenges. 

The lack of wifi, as well as the complete lack of cell reception posed a threat to my peace of mind. I can’t communicate with the outside world. I posted a blog post on Friday and I can’t check up on it until Sunday. I can’t soothe myself by looking at Instagram when I feel bored or awkward in a social situation. I had to just stick it out. Eli didn’t like the lack of Wi-Fi, but I’m not going to lie, after a while I kind of came to enjoy it. There was something about it that was a challenge to me. It was about the two of us learning to communicate effectively without texting. Learning to communicate our thoughts, feelings and ideas in the moments we had together, and feeling safe in the moments we spent apart. This is something we struggle with at home, as his house has limited Wi-Fi and no cell reception, and I often find myself anxious when I’m apart from him for this very reason. But the challenges of this weekend made me (and I hope us) more secure in that lack of contact, and more secure in being apart. 

 When I first drafted this post, I wrote, "The biggest wow factor for me on this trip was not being anxious WOW." That was true at first, but by the second night it was not. Anxiety had mounted to something of a peak, and Eli went to bed early, in my mind abandoning me with a world of my own. I felt almost unsafe without him awake, alert, and by my side. This is the part where I would usually insert the lesson-- about how I ventured out on my own at 11:30 at night with just my camera and a vague idea of where the stars were. How I hastily and uncertainly walked to the upper camp, where I had been told you could see the constellations more brightly and clearly than anywhere else in the country. How I looked up, and was amazed, and took a photo, and felt at ease. All that was true, for a moment. And then I went back to the lodge and the anxiety crept back up again, the worries biting me again and again much like the black flies that plagued us outside. 

 I'm the kind of person who really likes...no, needs a home base. In every new place I visit I construct one out of the available materials, like a bird building a nest. I usually build them for myself, and it's a one person nest. In moments of anxiety it includes ginger ale, crackers, and something to do- whether that's working on editing a video or watching some silly YouTube videos. But out there, in the wilderness, in the vulnerability of being in the wild and knowing that you are really minuscule and the world is really big and the sky is even bigger, I learned that my definition of a home base has changed. 

 My home base is now a person, not a place or a construct or a collection of things. And that idea scares me, because what if he goes away? What if he leaves permanently? Will my heart race forever, without this sort of human drug that slows it, calms it down? Have I lost the ability to self regulate? Or have I gained the ability to ask for help? 

 The last time I was in the Adirondack mountains, I was spending the night at my best friend's camp. We watched The Lord of the Rings and kayaked out to a little island and talked about our dreams. But at 1 am, my heart wouldn't slow and my hands wouldn't stop shaking and I worked myself into a frenzy that only calling my mom put at ease. I didn't wake Kelsey up, and didn't even tell her about it until the next morning. But this time, I asked for help. I woke Eli up and he immediately shook off his frustration and put me at ease just by being. Vulnerability is absolutely terrifying. It is what made me shake with nervous excitement all the time when Eli and I first started dating. But it is also what permitted me to fall asleep that second night, and I am beginning to realize that it is what enables us to grow as well. 

 In the hours and hours of musical performances that I watched this weekend, I noticed something. The musicians didn't rush to speak after the music ended. They reveled in the natural silences, those charged, vulnerable, emotional silences, and didn't hasten to fill them. This made the silences that much more comfortable. They were electric, but somehow peaceful, and never awkward. I'm trying to learn how to revel in what some would call "awkward" silences. Because while they feel like an eternity, they're really only a few beats of your heart, and the music is moments away from picking up again. 

 -Fran

P.S.- If you're interested in seeing my video for the Roots & Branches Music Workshop, stay tuned to my YouTube channel. It should be up by the end of this week. In the meantime, check out this short teaser clip I posted on the Great Camp Sagamore Facebook page.

Bob's Burgers: A Review By Someone Who Hates Animated TV Shows For Adults

 My love affair with Bob’s Burgers started out slow. First, I would just watch an episode here, two episodes there with my boyfriend while he was binge-watching it. Completely out of order (for me). And then, he finished, and I found myself starting it from the beginning, on my own. I have long proclaimed that I hate animated TV shows. (For adults. I have nothing against Phineas and Ferb and the like. Who doesn't love Phineas and Ferb?!) I don't like the Simpsons, Family Guy, or South Park. For some reason they're all too crude, grating, and just plain ridiculous for me, and I am someone who thrives on crudeness. But Bob's Burgers is different. What I love about this show is that sure, it's silly, but the reason it's different (for me anyways) is that they're actually a really great family. They may be a little bit weird or stupid sometimes, but instead of making fun of each other, they just love and support each other. This show brings me so much joy because it features quintessential family values integrated with my particular brand of sarcastic, awkward humor. 

 Bob Belcher, for example, is a really great father who loves his kids and is passionate about his job even if it doesn't pay the best. (Or much of anything, really.) He doesn't have unrealistic expectations for his kids, doesn't put pressure on them to be what they're not, and teaches them through his actions that it's more important to be happy than to be rich.

 Linda Belcher is a wonderful mother who encourages and loves her children no matter what. She's also a woman who feels the impending doom of aging, and yet she's never a stereotype. In an episode where it’s Linda’s birthday and she’s feeling the weight of getting older, in the end the message is— I’m getting older, but I’m getting better. I’m strong, and not getting weaker with age. I can still kick a tough day in the butt. And I think that's a pretty inspiring message to include in an animated television show.

 Louise Belcher, the youngest of the Belcher kids, is a horrible, witty, sarcastic, biting person, that most 19 year olds I know can relate to more than any other character on television. She's also a nine year old girl who never takes off her pink bunny hat. Yet her sarcasm is only reserved for people who deserve it, and though we can always hear her tone of voice and assume she is being mean, when it is addressed at Tina, Gene, or any other member of her family, she is never serious. They don't get her bite. In a show with inferior writing, Louise would be incapable of love. (Because of course someone who is as sarcastic and witty as she wouldn't love their family.) But Louise is complex, and ultimately human. She loves her family and accepts them as they are, quirky flaws and all, because they in turn accept her abrasive tone and love her not in spite of it, but for it.

 Gene Belcher both is and is not a normal 11 year old boy. He's obsessed with his fart keyboard, pranks, and puns (in much the same way as his dad is). Although there is pressure from society, though never from his family, to be more masculine and stereotypically male than he is, he never gives in. Tina Belcher, who is probably the most infamous and recognizable Bob's Burgers character, is a wonderfully hormonal thirteen year old girl who defies gender norms. She's boy crazy in a way that I believe is a step towards normalizing female sexuality, loves horses, and has an indifferent, deep, groaning tone of voice that makes it sound like everything she is asked to do it the most inconvenient thing in the world. She is essentially a modern day, female Eeyore, and she's also an overachiever. She gives a more realistic voice to the kid I (and many of my friends) were in high school. Tina raises her hand first but doesn't have the high pitched, spirited voice that her stereotypical counterparts have. But that doesn't mean she's not passionate. She's real.

 The best thing about the Belcher kids is just that-- they're kids. They aren’t idiotic nine, eleven, and thirteen year olds. They are complex. The creators of Bob's Burgers have done children everywhere a service by showing them as they are, and as they might be one day, all in one. Specifically in Louise's case they show that kids can be little assholes, but also be more than capable of love, empathy, selflessness and heart. There are so many positive messages in this show, along with so many fantastic puns. It’s the Parks & Recreation of animated TV shows, and I don’t say that lightly.

-Fran

Last Week #12 | Room to Grow

This week, I had the inexplicable yet powerful urge to clean out. Specifically, my bookshelves. My bookshelves have for a while been a source of pride for me, related to owning things. It was like, look at my shelves, look how full they are. A modern day version of Ariel's "look at this stuff, isn't it neat...wouldn't you say my collection's complete?" But recently when I've looked at them I haven't seen a complete collection but an outdated and no longer relevant one. The objects we own are often reflections of ourselves, and the things I had on my bookshelves no longer reflected who I am. So, I cleaned out.

 During the process, I found myself wanting to get rid of half of the books and stories I'd collected over the past three years. Finding myself a different person than I was then, and not necessarily wanting to erase that old version, but wanting to clear out the outdated remnants of her. I felt like I got a software update this week. I cleaned out those books that I no longer feel the need to hold on to. And while there were pieces I just couldn't let go of-- like my Harry Potter books, there are also pieces of me my body won't let me let go of-- like my anxiety.

 This week, for the first time in a long time, I got extremely anxious around people again. It was frustrating, disheartening, and ultimately uncomfortable, but I realized that it doesn't mean I'm the same person I was, just because I can't give away that part of myself as easily as I can give away a box of books. I've been seeing this theme lately-- that anxiety will always be with me, it may always affect me, maybe for the rest of my life. That is a distinct possibility I have always accepted. But there's a difference now. Just because it affects me doesn't mean it has to hold me back. I used to see each anxiety attack as a reason not to try. A reason to stop in my tracks, and take a turn away from the thing that gave me anxiety to begin with. Because that's what logical people do, right? When something hurts them, they stop doing it. But I've learned that courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. So I'm going to keep trying, even when it's hard. I'm going to move on and I'm going to do what scares me and I'm going to KEEP COMING BACK until those things doesn't give me anxiety anymore.

I looked at my shelves yesterday and didn't like how barren and empty they seemed. I felt like I had lost pieces of me. But this morning, I look at them and see that I've simply discarded the clutter, and given myself room to grow. Room to grow into myself. I made room for new this week. On my shelves, and in my life.

 -Fran

Last Week #11 | The Disconnect

 At the end of this week, following the glory of last, my boyfriend was called away on family business and I had to deal with being away from him after a weekend of being so close to him and my friends. Since I am not very good at coping and rather skilled at escapism, my sister and I decided to go to “the lake” (our family’s lake house in the Finger Lakes). This was our first trip as adult people, going on our own without our parents to a place we’d been a million times before. And it went surprisingly well. If you have a sister, you'll understand that the previous statement is really not an insult, but actually quite generous. 

What I learned from this weekend is this: the days are long when you're in control of them, and longer still when you aren't, and when you're without the people you love most. While my days were long and breezy, others' were not so much. I tried to do what I could to enjoy my time, and make theirs better where I could. 

And I succeeded. I laid out in the sun and flicked the ants of worry and anxiety and even sadness away. Though, my anxieties are persistent, so time after time they kept crawling back. But instead of focusing on them, I read. I wrote. I went for a walk and listened to my favorite music. I made my grandparents happy by visiting with them for an hour. I continued watching Seinfeld and dreamed. I didn't worry. 

As a young person, I hear a lot about how we are “always immersed in our screens” and how we “need to unplug more.” It’s kind of an incessant criticism. But the criticizers don’t ever stop to ask if we want it too. They might be surprised by the answer. This weekend, my sister and I both had the same goal— disconnecting. For her, it is because she is a senior in high school and being connected to the world through her phone means crazy amounts of stress pouring in at every turn— emails, reminders, tasks, more and more things she has to do at the so called “best time in her life.” For me, I wanted to escape for many of the same reasons. If I can’t connect to email, I can’t be reminded of all the things I’m not doing. Of all the time I’m wasting. And if I’m not connected, and instead have a glorious nature getaway in front of me, I also can’t focus on missing the person I love so much. I think we young people are always so connected to our "screens" nowadays for a multitude of complex reasons. Sure, we do engage socially there, but that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. They help us stay organized, keep on task, and it’s basically the nature of the job market nowadays. If you aren’t easily contactable, you aren’t getting the job. I think older generations fail to see that the screens we seem to love so much are also our worst enemies, and as difficult to extract ourselves from as X-Men-like wings on our backs. It's not that we don't want to put the "screens" down. It's that we can't rationalize disconnecting from so many opportunities, tasks, and emails that might get us somewhere in the world. 

Nevertheless, disconnecting was as good for me as it was for my sister, and just as necessary. To do nothing is an enormous task, especially for two "overachievers" such as ourselves. We talked about how when you wake up at 8 am with the whole day ahead of you, at 1 pm you are amazed at how seemingly little time has passed. I’m quite familiar with the feeling of— the day is already half over, and I haven’t done nearly as much as I planned! But this weekend, the feeling was more like: The day isn’t even half over, and we’ve already done all the nothing we could ever imagine with it! In my day to day life, the hours run screaming by me, ignorant and indifferent to my desperate attempts to catch them. So I don't know if the lake is magic or something, but this weekend I made time my bitch. 

 -Fran