Reverb12 Day Seven: Memorable Meal
I went back to Daily Angst for today’s prompt.
Hopefully you had more than one spectacular meal in 2012, but what is the first that comes to mind? Were you surrounded by family at the dining room table? Sitting on a bench by the lake? Bring us there.
I don’t know about spectacular, but certainly one of the more memorable and satisfying meals of 2012 was my birthday dinner.
My birthday is February 23. It is, frankly, one of the lamest possible times to have a birthday. In Maryland it’s right at the business end of the dark, depressing, frigid post-Christmas months before the spring thaw. Nothing is happening, and little is pleasant outside. Kind of blah.
A few years ago I started a bit of a tradition with my mother of going to Red Lobster for my birthday dinner. We almost never go there otherwise as it’s a bit pricier than we like, so I thought maybe once a year would be acceptable. That is what we did for three years. For 2012, things changed.
My younger sister and my youngest niece, Ella, were up for a visit during that weekend. Ella, at the time all of eight months old had been out to dinner before with her parents, but I had never done so with her. I thought if nothing else it would be a fun twist on the evening.
We tend to eat around 6:00PM in this family, so we left home around 5:15PM. One of the few blessings of February is that the days at last begin to get longer. It’s marginal but noticeable. So unlike 5:15PM in the middle of December, there was still some light left outside when we departed. Enough light in fact to reveal an encroaching grayness. A grayness I thought may be a sign to postpone the dinner. But it was decided we’d be fine.
When we got to Red Lobster, the place was covered both in heavy swirls of falling ice and snow, and the single biggest mob of humanity I have ever seen trying to enter a restaurant in my life. People standing in line in the parking lot to get in. I’m not one to wait in line just to get into restaurant, and this didn’t bode well for the recent tradition.
Nonetheless, my sister parked the car so Mom could go in and scout the situation. To the surprise of nobody, she came back and reported it could be more than an hour before new customers were served. It was decided then and there that there would be no traditional serf and turf birthday dinner for me that night.
As my sister eased her colossal Jeep Tahoe out of the cramped and somewhat slushy parking lot, I suggested that perhaps we just abandon the entire affair. Taking into account the gray mass in the sky I saw before we left home, the insane, unprecedented run on the local Red Lobster, and the increasing winds, I thought perhaps it was a sign that this family meal was not to be.
Having packed up Ella and come all the way to town, however, my sister was determined to make at least something of the evening. Down the road a short way was a Ruby Tuesday, and we made it our alternate destination. Though we were only out of the car for a few minutes, the winter walloped us a bit. It took a few minutes inside the warm, (and thinly populated) eatery to shake off that chill.
It turns out, they too had serf and turf. Not as big, and not as tasty, (though not as expensive) as that at Red Lobster, but it was there. I ordered it as my anxiety over the increasing snow and ice fall outside climbed.
Ella threw things on the floor from her provided high chair, and laughed. We laughed with her, and so did just about every server and every other sporadic customer in our part of the restaurant.
The food came with unusual speed. I suppose because there were not as many orders to fill on that particular Saturday night. It wasn’t Red Lobster, but the steak was tender, warm and well seasoned, with just a hint of the sizzle remaining even as it sat on my plate. The lobster was fresh, perfectly white meat surrounded by a sunset-orange shell of a well-cooked crustacean of the genus. Over all, quite satisfactory.
It had grown dark by the time we began eating, though the sidewalk lights and parking lot lamps outside the nearby window illuminated the still heavy winter slop as it fell around us, beginning to coat the pavement and the cars. I didn’t like that my sister would have to drive in it, and I was glad I didn’t have to. But for about an hour, there was a special fulfillment in being warm and comfortable inside with family and a hearty meal while still able to observe the unforgiving swirl of winter just outside the building.
Certain things, meals included, take on a higher quality simply due to what you have had to go through in order to obtain them. The four of us had not gone through life and death, nor did we struggle getting home, given the four wheel drive nature of the vehicle. But after several dead of winter misadventures, finding an alternative place for serf and turf on my birthday, and being able to share the evening with Ella, her mother, and my mother made for a meal that was, in its way, spectacular.
Reverb12 Day Six: What Have You Learned?
Compare the “you” from the beginning of 2012 to the “you” that you are now. What new skills or talents have you learned or discovered this year?
I suppose any given year most people could say they have learned something. I can say that I have learned over 2012. Yet what I learned was internal. Spiritual. Emotional. The truth is, looking back over 2012, I have no new skills or talents as compared to last year.
A lot of people thrive on learning a new skill almost all the time. Putting that bonus from work into lessons for something. Taking a retreat dedicated to something new. Exploring their minds. I’ve even talked to people who think life is being wasted if one isn’t learning how to do new things each week or day..
That’s a noble thought at its core. But when examined in the more practical light of the everyday I have to wonder how much of that new skill is absorbed into that person’s life. That is to say I often wonder if the people who learn new skills all the time in order to feel alive and excite their minds are able to incorporate all of what they’ve learned, even on a recreational level.
Some people can, of course, and that’s great. Others, however, I think pursue new skills just for the sake of saying they did so. They have a visceral reaction to engaging in something new. Just as extroverts, (much to my astonishment) feel more alive when having tiny, shallower conversations in loud rooms with as many people as possible, some people are energized by “dabbling”. The term jack of all trades, master of none was custom made for a lot of these folks.
I sympathize, because if I am not careful I could be one of them. My natural tendency is to explore a lot of different things. Fencing, Latin,drawing, vocal lessons. There was a time I thought about developing skills in one or more of those. But then I decided that if my theatre and writing careers were to get the attention they deserved, I’d have to cut back. So I made the conscious decision several years ago not to wade into as many pools as I had been. (Though I still want to pursue basic Latin at some point.)
Not that I am closed to the possibility of learning a new skill. I do sometimes explore such things. And the time may come where for career reasons or other such things I will need to develop a new skill. But unless it is something I feel a strong passion for, or there is some guarantee that I will be able to make use of it to improve my life as a whole, (outside of the simply act of learning), I find that my life, and my slow rate of success in same, don’t allow for me to learn new skills just for the sake of learning them. Learning something new, even when I’m interesting, has not made me a more marketable, interesting person to society.
Maybe one day.
Reverb12 Day Five: Dream Destination
What was your dream destination in 2012 and why? It can be a town, city, country or region — real or imaginary — and doesn’t matter if you actually got there or not!
Probably England.
There are plenty of other places I would love to get to, even within the United Kingdom. But England stands out in my mind as someplace I’d very much like to visit. That isn’t unique to 2012, either. That’s been on my list for years.
Why? One certainly doesn’t choose England for the paradise factor. Not in the traditional sense of the term, at least. For me there are several factors that make England a dream destination. Some of them I can explain, and some I can’t. “Because it’s England” is not a legitimate answer outside of my own mind, yet that is what I could most easily say.
England, both now and throughout its long, rich history dances to a cosmic music that seems in some way in tune with my own. That doesn’t make England superior to other countries. It doesn’t mean England, (and later the United Kingdom) has always been on the correct side of history. It just makes it more familiar to me on a personal level then other nations I could visit as a dream destination.
As a rule, England doesn’t carry itself as a dream destination, does it? Of course it has an active tourism industry like any other place. That industry puts a great deal of money and energy into getting people to come visit. But unlike say Hawaii or Jamaica, England doesn’t scream, “Come be a tourist here!” It is simply England. Steady, knowable, unshakable England, as it has been for centuries. Keep calm and carry on.
Not that I’m ignorant as to the Westernization, or perhaps more accurately Americanization of some significant aspects of English society and culture. The atmosphere of England, particularly in places like London, is not as distinctly British as it was even 30 years ago. Still, it is England.
I don’t limit my dream destination to the cities, anyway. The small towns of rural England call to me as well. I don’t mean to suggest that I could make an entire life within such small, removed communities, (which are not immune to the cultural encroachment I spoke of earlier), but I long for the experience of living in and traveling to and from such places for a few weeks. Again, changes notwithstanding, there is still a particular British quality that one is going to find in such places that cannot be found anywhere else. A quieter, more thoughtful, polite, stoic, dignified introverted quality that isn’t the rule in any American city or town as far as I can determine.
There is also the history. There is deep, complex history in every country and region. But there is something about English history that just clicks with the way I think. Once more, it isn’t a superior history of a flawless people. On the contrary. But the tapestry of English history has been woven in a way I can follow with less effort for some reason as compared to other nations. Its history seems hewn from a similar stone as my own country’s chronology. (Which, I suppose upon reflection makes perfect sense.)
Then of course there’s the language. I’m a writer, and England is the birthplace of my native tongue. And though Churchill observed, (not without justification) that Americans and the English were a people “divided by a common language”, the majority of both nations speak English and can be understood by one another. This is yet another factor that makes England a dream destination for me.
Now this isn’t due to mere familiarity with the language. This isn’t callous aversion to those who speak something else. Rather a connection to the crucible wherein the very words I think, speak, write and perform on stage were forged. Though I’m American, much of what language is to me is owed to England.
If I want pristine tropical beaches, I will head for the Caribbean. If I wish to abandon my comfort zone and lose myself in exotic landscapes, various Asian destinations are probably at the top of the list. Yet if I want to explore something new, significant, iconic to the world and yet on one level somehow like going home, my dream destination is England. God save the Queen.
Reverb12: Celebrating Myself
How are you going to celebrate yourself this festive season?
The truth is I probably don’t celebrate myself as much as one should. I don’t mean the corny, Hallmark Channel type of self-celebration either. (Though that is harmless, even if not for me.) I mean the concept of honoring my own uniqueness by allowing it to be known and shared with those around me. I imagine celebrating myself would also include a great deal of inward appreciation for what I am.
I have aspects of myself for which I am grateful, and of which I am proud. Specifically my high level of skill as both a writer and an actor. Then there are aspects of me that I am not proud of. Aspects of me that require at least improvement and at most elimination. Over the years I’ve dedicated quite a bit of energy and time into reflection and reconstruction of those aspects of myself. I will admit to mixed results. I am much improved over my self from years ago in ways and in other ways I remain the same despite the efforts at change.
Therein lies the difficulty with celebrating oneself. That crucial delicate balance between loving oneself as is, and seeking to always be better than one used to be. Can one celebrate oneself totally while trying to change certain aspects of their lives and personality? Yes, I suppose they can. It’s just a balance I still struggle with. As though celebrating the good aspects of myself, or celebrating myself as a whole will endorse those aspects of me I’d like to change.
Which of course it will not. We can have friends and even spouses that posses certain weaknesses with which we have issues, and yet love the entire person no less. Let that be a lesson for our view of ourselves, that we may celebrate who we are even as we seek to improve who we are. We just need to be careful not to become so enamored with who we are as to lose all motivation to improve and evolve.
However, like any high wire balancing act it’s possible to fall in the opposite direction. The open space through which we can tumble on the other side of the wire is a constant state of self-correcting. A daily routine consisting of analysis and overzealous self-discipline. A place where we are never satisfied with our progress and punish ourselves accordingly. This is no more useful to us than narcissism.
Yet the prompt is about celebrating and not berating myself, and believe it or not, I’m getting to that. I just wanted to address that balance first. I’m a thorough sort, after all.
Just as many people allow their diets to be suspended during the holiday season, I think it is wise for all of us, not just me, to celebrate ourselves during this festive season by accepting our weaknesses and less desirable traits for what they are without trying to correct them. To simply be, for good and bad, productive and unproductive, forward and backward. To enjoy the examination of ourselves, but not use it as a means to remold ourselves. That’s a lot of work, and it’s probably more difficult to celebrate the holidays whilst we try to improve ourselves all the time. They will be plenty of time for it in the New year.
There are limits of course. Those addicted to drugs must not let the holidays put off their rehabilitation. If our flaws are doing harm to other people, or threatening our own lives than we have gone beyond merely accepting what we are. We are then dealing with illness or injury, and I don’t intend to suggest such things be ignored during the holidays of course.
Reverb is actually one way I am participating in this self-celebration. As with last year the prompts encourage me not only to write more, but to think more. To present to the world an assessment of who I am, what my world is like, and how I would like to change both as time goes on. It’s an ongoing assessment but one that during this blogging experience I shall do a bit more openly with the public.
I’m also going to try to immerse myself more in the worlds of my strengths. Writing and theatre. I actually try to do this all year round of course. Follow the bliss and that kind of thing. But so many other worries and anxieties have invaded my mind lately that I don’t think either is getting all of the mental and spiritual energy it deserves I hope to correct that a bit during this festive season. (Though I am not in a Christmas play this year.)
Reverb12: Beautiful Things?
(As I said I might do, I went to a different Reverb source for today’s prompt. This one comes from a site called dailyangst.com.)
What brought beauty into your life this year? Was it a tangible thing or something intangible? Tell us about it in detail.
There was a similar prompt at some point in Reverb11 last year. As was so a year ago I’m somewhat concerned by the fact that an answer to this doesn’t jump out at me. I ask again today as I did nearly a year ago if I am blind to beauty. This is mostly a rhetorical question, because in the end I don’t think I’m blind to it. Yet after facing this question two years in a row with the same difficulty, it might be time to acknowledge a pattern.
I worry a lot. Regret even more. I suffer a great deal of anxiety, for myself and for loved ones. (Probably even more than I did a year ago.) I have nightmares and such. Many of my plans have not worked out, and I don’t often know the exact next step to take once said plans become derailed. I grow weary of plans not working out, weary of being worried about them, weary of not knowing what to do about all of it, and weary with having to go through much of it alone.
This comes in waves. A month or two being disgusted by how things are turning out, (or failing to turn out as it were.) Then a month or two of accepting and even embracing the fact that I am still building something. Then when that doesn’t yield the dividends I planned, up comes the wave again. Even when the tide has receded for a while, there’s plenty of flotsam and jetsam left on shore to make running barefoot along the beach a delicate task.
It should come as no surprise that the perception and reception of beautiful things is altered under such circumstances.
Altered. Not destroyed. It isn’t that i recognize no beautiful things. On the contrary, I have this deep set intellectual understanding that beauty is everywhere. I know flowers are beautiful. That music is. Love can be beautiful for those lucky enough to find it. Friendship too. Dew on morning grass and the casual deep orange streaks of a sunset are beautiful things and I know it. But is knowing beauty the point? Can the full power of the beautiful in the universe be attained through intellectual recognition? No.
For much of my time, beautiful things are like the stars in the middle of the day. They’re out there by the billions. I know they are out there, and the concept of how many there are is mind numbing. Just reflecting on the truth about the stars, and how little we really know about space can serve a great purpose. But in the end the practical truth of the matter is that you can’t see any of them, except the sun of course. And you can’t even look at that one.
Now, much like that sun, sometimes the ubiquitous beauty of which I am intellectually aware breaks through the clouds and shines upon me with the full emotional and spiritual impact which makes it relevant to human life in the first place. I enjoy those moments. I share them with others and write about them when words are sufficient or appropriate. I am thankful for them and reflect on them. But eventually daytime comes as daytime tends to do, and it all becomes an intellectual understanding again, as opposed to the sort of starry night that moved Van Gogh, despite his madness.
Is this sad, or merely a truth about myself? Part of me thinks it would only be sad if I perceived no beauty of any kind in any fashion. As I have told you, this is not the case. And when I feel beauty with my spirit as much as I see it with my mind, it is quite the awe inspiring moment, believe me. But would an alteration of my thought patterns or daily perception of the world allow for a more emotional/spiritual relationship with beauty on a regular basis than I posses at present? Or is the dynamic I have with beautiful things sufficient?
I don’t know. Do you?
Ty Unglebower 