Conversations With Dull People

In Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, the movie that is, there is a peculiar hourglass in Professor Slughorn's office. I can't remember if it's actually in the book. I'll have to listen to the book again to find out. Yes, I love audiobooks and the reader for the Harry Potter series is magnificent, truly.

The sand in the hourglass speeds up or slows down dependent upon the quality of the conversation. This got me thinking about the relativity of time. I'm sure the intent in the magical world of Harry Potter is to speed up time when the conversation is dull and slow it down when the conversation is brilliant (there's a little English turn of phrase for ya).

So, why in the real world does it work exactly the opposite? Why is it that conversations with dull people seem to last f-o-r-e-v-e-r while at the same time, conversations you wish would not end, are over before you know it?

Quite frankly, this is a dilemma because there are so many more dull people than fascinating. I mean honestly, why is that? I don't know where I fit really. I'm not arrogant enough to consider myself brilliant. I have a fair IQ, and I try to be clever, but mostly, I just go where my brain takes me. Usually that means the weather. You'd think that most people are somewhere in the middle as well, right? Not in my experience. I know it's a terrible thing to say? I'm not trying to be mean. I honestly think it's because we just don't have the time these days to figure out if someone is really interesting or not. Instead, we conduct short little conversations in passing and even though they are only minutes long, sometimes seconds... they seem to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r. The types of conversations we have time for include dull topics like the weather (there it is again) or what the price of gas is these days. Honestly, who cares. The weather is the weather and we don't have any control over the price of gas. The worst part is, I get sucked into these topics all the time and sometimes I even start conversations this way. ARGH!

So it seems, I'm a really dull person as well. And here's the thing, the more attractive the person is, the more dull I get. The other day in the elevator, a handsome man said good morning to me and I nearly choked on my tongue. Why is that? Then of course I spent the rest of the day beating myself up because I was so dull... or idiotic might be a better term.

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Wouldn't it be wonderful instead to sit around talking about art or new discoveries in science? Politics, the environment, the relativity of time or even talking about cars would be much more interesting than the weather. Now, there is an exception to "everything's more interesting than the weather" rule. When the weather discussion is pertinent to other aspects of the conversation, like "you've chose to hike the Appalachian Trail" for instance, and are concerned about how the weather will affect your hike, then okay!

What I've discovered is that most of the truly fascinating conversations I have are actually with children. I don't have any kids of my own, but I run across these miniature people occasionally and they truly are fascinating. They ask the most amazing questions and come up with truly incredible conclusions about things. I'll never forget about a little girl I met in the post office one day. She was carrying a small box with her. It had holes in the top which suggested she was keeping some kind of creature in it. I asked her about the box and she said it was her pet grasshopper. She went on to tell me all about him, what he liked to eat and the conversations she'd had with him. Let me tell you, that grasshopper wasn't dull

I guess if a grasshopper can be interesting... surely I can be. Or at least, surely I can keep trying... and that brings me back to the relativity of time. Certainly it's all about perception, right? When we're enjoying ourselves, time only seems to go faster. When we're not, it slows down. I think J.K. Rowling had it right, it should be the other way around. So, maybe the lesson is that we must immerse ourselves completely and totally in all of our conversations. Maybe by doing that, we can discover the "fascinating" in every seemingly dull person. By doing that, maybe we can speed up or slow down the passage of time. That's silly, right? I mean it's all about perception... or maybe it really is magic.
L

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Scotland or Bust!

Well, about a year ago... I think at the start of my mid-life crisis, I started thinking about moving myself and my dog and maybe the Jeep... to Scotland. Just out of the blue. If the money would have been available, quite honestly, I would have been gone already.

Most people will probably think that this isn't a crazy idea, I mean people make moves everyday. Including big moves to other countries. What makes it crazy is that I've never actually been to Scotland. In fact, I live in Montana and I've never even been to Canada! Montana borders Canada by the way.  In addition, I don't have a passport quite yet (although I was supposed to have that done by now). I got stuck at the emergency contact field on the form. I didn't have one.

It's not that I haven't ever traveled. I've been to at least 8 states and some more than once. I mean really, I know how to get around!

I thought I would hate Florida, but I loved it. Sea World with it's dolphin nursery, the armadillos and the constant sunshine. Really lovely. The most fascinating thing were the gardens. What we consider tropical plants meant for indoors and constant care here in my neck of the woods, were actually planted OUTSIDE and they were enormous. I had a ball trying to see how many of their outdoor plants I actually had in my living room at home.

Texas was fun because of the people. They were all so friendly and it seems their state greeting was "Hey girl!" I loved that.

The sheer number of public transportation methods in San Francisco were mind-boggling. In my city (I use this term loosely), we have a city bus system, but they stop running about 6:00pm and there are no other alternatives... I guess we have taxi cabs, but I think only 4 or 5 of them.

I loved Oregon as well. Friendly, mellow people, beautiful gardens and a laid back attitude. The best thing was that there were still a lot of things to do like art galleries, theaters, parks etc....

Illinois was stuffy. I got the feeling that the people I met there really considered themselves to be aristocratic and I kept thinking "this is Illinois, isn't it?" Sorry Illinois. I didn't see Chicago and I know my experience isn't representative of all your people.

But there is something about Scotland that just calls to me. Something about the landscape, the people, the attitude that is extremely appealing. The accent doesn't hurt either. I like accents. I think they're fun and frankly good exercise for the brain. Really any accent is fun to listen to. I'm sure people think I have an accent in certain parts of the country, but I love them all... New York, Boston, the southern US, you name it, I like listening to it. OK, back to my subject...

In preparation for the trip, I've been trying to learn Gaelic. Obviously, the Scottish speak English (with their amazing accent), but Gaelic is making a comeback like Native American tribal languages here. Let me just say, Gaelic is hard with a capital HARD. I can say "my name is Lori" in Gaelic and that's about it after a month of study. It seems to me that Gaelic is one of those languages where someone threw a bunch of letters together then pronounced something completely different, or maybe it's the other way around. Was it spoken pre-modern alphabet and someone tried to retro-fit the letters to the sounds? I'll have to look that up. In either case, they don't exactly match and I mostly don't get it, but it's fun to try. And of course, fun to listen to.

Dreamy Scotland. Some of the most beautiful landscape in the world in my opinion. If you've seen movies like "Stardust" or "Centurion", you'll know what I mean. It actually does remind me a bit of Montana. Independent people, unforgiving terrain and sheer tenacity and spirit. But different and farther away ;)

You may wonder why I'm thinking about moving to a place that reminds me of home when I could just stay... uh... home. It might seem a bit pointless, I guess. But honestly, there are several reasons. The biggest one is this: You know when you're on a trip and it's exciting in the beginning. You can't wait to get there and you know you're going to have an enormous amount of fun and you do have fun. Well, there's a moment on the way home... I think it hits about a 1/3 to 1/2 way home when you just want to BE home. You are done with the trip, it's over, you're ready to be in your own bed and off the plane or out of the car. Your mind has already checked out. That's sort of how I feel about Montana right now. It's not that I don't love it... or think it's absolutely beautiful... I do. But I am just done with it for now.

I can't actually move yet, and yes it would be crazy to make plans to move before even getting there to see it firsthand, but that's in the works as well. I'm also sure that there's a a big brawny man in a kilt waiting there just for me (possibly of Viking descent) so why not take the chance?  I know, I'm obsessed a little. At the very least, it will be a new adventure in a new place... the land of sacred standing stones, castles, epic romance and Braveheart.  The problem is that I truly think when I actually get there, I won't want to come back. I think my soul will know that I'm home.

L

The Unicorn in the Room

So, I've recently had to come to terms with the fact that I don't 'fit in'.  Although it's something I've dealt with all my life, my mid-life crisis is changing my attitude about it... and in a good way! No longer am I trying to fit in, but instead I am embracing who I am. It really hit me the other day during a business meeting. As I was sitting with people who were talking about driving to kid's baseball games, watching sports and sending kids to college, I realized that I was the odd man, I mean woman, out. I do my best to understand their perspective and share conversation, but for the most part, my life & my attitudes are very very different from theirs.

For instance, I believe in unicorns... and fairies and angels. Basically I believe in almost anything that sounds absolutely impossible. This sounds a little bit like my 'second childhood' has pushed me over the edge of sanity, right? But I'm as sane as the next person. I just choose to believe that magic is real. Why? Because it's a beautiful idea, isn't it? It's beautiful to think that something miraculous exists beyond us. It's also a great source of inspiration.

Let me tell you how I got here. As an artist, I've always been blessed with a wild imagination. I was an only child and from the time I was a little girl I daydreamed about fantastical characters and alternate universes. I particularly believed in wizards and unicorns, gnomes & fairies, elves & dragons. Sounds like the makings for the ultimate fantasy geek, right? Well, I don't actually attend Comicon, but I do think it would be fun.

Here's the thing. I didn't live in a house where my parents read me bedtime stories. In fact, it was just my mom & I unless I was staying with my grandparents, and none of them read to me. In fact, I can't remember one instance of anyone reading to me. I didn't have any early reader books. The first memory I have of someone reading to me was my second grade teacher, and he was really good at it. It's probably the reason why I love listening to audiobooks now. It's my indulgence. Some women like pedicures... I like a great audiobook read by someone who is really good at it.

So, I have to wonder where these imagined characters came from. If I didn't have any knowledge of fairy tales, how could I just know about fairies? I don't know the answer to that. But I do vividly remember moments where I knew it was true. For instance, I used to play at my grandparent's hobby farm. There was a shallow ditch running across the pasture and I loved to sit in the ditch and watch what passed by. There were dragonflies, snails & earthworms, crickets and birds, a plethora of tiny creatures that most people didn't notice at all. I would build boats for the snails out of milk weed pods complete with leafy sails and set them on their course. Looking back, I sure hope they made it safely to wherever I sent them. But I had a clear picture in my head of all of them communicating with each other, assisted by tiny fairies when they got in trouble and off to lands where they could see dragons and ride unicorns.

That imagination is alive and well today. Thank goodness. It's always been there, but it sort of woke back up when I started reading the Harry Potter stories a few years ago. What a magical and wondrous book! A friend recently said that J.K. Rowling was divinely inspired. She suggested that there was real magic happening in the writing of that story. She's a friend who believes as well, thank goodness for her. And I agree.

Artists and Art Historians have talked for centuries about divine inspiration. People accept the term without really thinking about it. But I'm here to tell you, it's absolutely true. I've felt it. There are moments in my studio, whether I am drawing or throwing pots, that I forget myself... even forget what I am doing and just work. It's not like I'm possessed or anything dark like that. It's a sort of stepping outside of myself. It's like I can understand the clay, or the pencil. Like the medium just works itself. I can tell when it's not happening and during those times it almost always pays to get out of the studio. In the inspired moments, the magical moments, the ideas create themselves. The forms create themselves. I am just tool in this. But I am always fascinated by it. And I always thank the fairies when the project is complete, because I truly believe they were in the room.

So there you go. I believe in fairies & other crazy things. So be it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to replace my DVD player so I can watch Lord of the Rings tonight. ;)
L