I’ve combined this goal with #225: Learn how other cultures give birth. I started research on the book, but this project has been temporarily put on hold while I pursue a few other goals.

I’ve always been fascinated by anthropology and learning about the various beliefs and customs of people around the world. What’s even more fascinating to me than examining the differences is looking for the similarities – the things that are universal to all of us. I think that when you find those things, you can really figure out what it means to be a human being.

I’m excited to learn more about the customs and practices surrounding the welcoming of a new life into the world. I want to call the book “Arriving” and I’ve already got plans for two other titles, named “Departing” and “Connecting”.

I have to tell you that I think that learning a language is a life-long activity, so you may never see me move this one to the completed list.

My experience with Spanish began when I was in third grade. My elementary school had a program named “E.T.” I have no idea what that stands for, but they took 5 or 6 kids who were getting high marks and they would meet in E.T. class a couple times a week for lessons above and beyond the usual curriculum. I was supposed to be included in this program but there was a mix-up (read: my teacher had really, really bad handwriting) and they put this other kid with a name similar to mine in the program instead. When my teacher tried to fix the mistake, she was told it was too late and I had missed too much. (Who said life is fair?)

But, the people who DID get into E.T. were my friends, so I knew what they were doing in their E.T. lessons. Spanish interested me, so I took a book on the subject out of the library. It was a cute little book intended to teach children how to speak Spanish. The book introduced each letter of the Spanish alphabet to the reader as though it were a person. I still remember “Meet H – the silent letter” and “Ñ – the nosy letter.” I taught myself a little Spanish. I was so proud to say my first sentence: “María y Pedro beben mucho chocolate leche.” (Maria and Pedro drink a lot of chocolate milk. Very useful if you’re ever lost in Mexico, but that’s a different story.)

After that, I just sort of forgot about Spanish and when it came time to pick a foreign language in eighth grade, I chose the romantic language of French, somehow thinking that it would be more useful than Spanish since I lived only a few hours from the Canadian border, and dreamed of visiting France one day. (Naive pre-teen assumption: that I would always live right where I was).

My next experience with Spanish wouldn’t come until I was 19 years old, and moved to Southern California. I would get lost or go exploring (the two are the same for me) and find myself in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. I even lived in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood for 7 months, and I picked up some Spanish that way. There was also an ill-fated trip to Mexico that ended rather earlier than planned. (Hint: At least be able to ask for directions or say “No comprende” if you decide to visit).

Then life took me back to the East Coast and since I had every intention of moving back to Southern California, when I had to choose a foreign language to study in college, I chose Spanish. I loved it and ended up taking a second semester of Spanish even though it wasn’t required.

After college, I occasionally checked some Spanish-language tapes out from the local library.

Now that I have returned to Southern California, native Spanish speakers are abundant. I work with two of them. Luckily one of my co-workers is a very patient teacher. Sometimes when I want to say something to him, I will look up a word or two in a Spanish-English dictionary or use Alta Vista’s Babelfish and then proudly approach him and say my sentence in Spanish.

Typically I’m met with a look of confusion and “¿Qué?”

I repeat myself, trying to be more careful about pronunciation. Then I get a furrowed brow, a shake of the head and “¿Qué?”

Finally, I say “Como se dice ‘Please move these boxes to the other room’?” (“Come se dice” means “How do you say…”)

“Ah,” says my co-worker. Then he tells me the correct way to say my sentence in Spanish, which is typically completely different than whatever mishmash I managed to put together on my own.

Once in awhile I get it right. Hopefully, some of this will actually stick in my head.

I don’t know that this will ever be a project that I make the necessary commitment to.

Every couple years, I dig out my research and do a little more work on it. The more time that slips by, though, the harder it is to dig up the information. People pass on and new people are born. But they are all my family. I start to wonder if what my great great grandfather did for a living is as important as what my 9-year-old nephew wants to be when he grows up.

It feels as though time is so precious and I wonder if my time is best spent digging up facts about people I never met and never knew. Isn’t it better to research my family’s present? Isn’t it better to spend time writing about my life, putting it together with photos and postcards and ticket stubs so that if my future great grandchildren want to know something about me, it’s all right there? And I wonder, will anyone wonder about my life?

I have a little pamphlet I got when I graduated high school that contains the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Amendments. I’ve read through it, but I haven’t really learned it.

I think in these times, it’s especially important for us to know what rights our Constitution guarantees us.

I think that, like many people, I am fascinated by Albert Einstein. That doesn’t mean that I’ve studied his work or his life or that I know very much about him at all. I’ve never even taken a physics class. Somehow I escaped both college and high school without so much as a single lecture on relativity.

I struggled for a long time, searching the web for helpful web site tutorials, but the thing I finally came across that seems the most promising is a book written by dear Mr. Einstein himself. I guess since he spent much of his life working as a professor, it only makes sense that he’d be good at teaching and explaining his own theory.

Now, to find the time to read and study and understand.

I used to work with a man named Donald. He and I held this opinion that change wasn’t “real” money. When you look in your wallet or purse to see how much money you have, you don’t count the change. It just sits there in the bottom and multiplies until you’re weighted down.

That’s when you drag it out and count it and realize that you have $5 or maybe $10 in there. See, then you can use the money to buy yourself something that your ordinarily wouldn’t spend $5 or $10 on because it’s “free” money. Completely illogical, isn’t it? Yet, it somehow seems stupid to waste hard-earned wages on gambling but okay to spend change for the same purpose.

But I was recently advised that actually accumulating change in a large bank for months or years is actually a waste because you *could* be putting that money in a savings account and earning interest.

It’s hard to argue with that. After giving that some thought, I modified my plan. I counted up my change each month and deposited it in a savings account to earn some interest. It worked for awhile.

But then I discovered that if you used the CoinStar machines to count your change *and* used the change to purchase gift certificates instead of getting cash back, that you didn’t have to pay for the coin counting service. So now I gather up my change whenever the dish gets full and take it to redeem it for Amazon gift cards.

I think that maybe I should try and put less things on my list than can never actually be checked off.

It’s really amazing how quickly you can accumulate stuff. Just random things. And it seems like you go to work and work so hard to earn the money to buy the stuff, because you think you need it for one reason or another, but then you look around one day and realize that it’s just stuff. That’s all. And that it doesn’t really do you any good. In fact, if anything, it’s just a nuisance.

You want to move to a new town? Get a nicer apartment? You have to deal with all of this stuff. What are you going to do with it? Pack it all up and take it with you? How are you going to get it there? How much is it going to cost? Will it cost more than the stuff is actually worth?

It’s as though your possessions just become something that weight you down, keep you from being free to move about as you please.

I come from a family of seamstresses. There were a few times when I was young that I got interested in sewing. I would go through my Mom’s patterns and fabric and pick something out, then ask her to show me how. The problem was that I didn’t have the patience. I didn’t want to mess around with cutting out the pattern and the material and the interfacing and on and on. I just wanted it to work like magic – just cut out the fabric and sew it into something fabulous to wear. My mom usually ended up sewing this stuff on her own.

Then I got to eighth grade, and along with everyone else, had to take the “skills for life” course. Just in case you’re curious, when I was in eighth grade there were six skills considered necessary for life: mechanical drawing, woodworking, metal working, sewing, cooking, and sex education. I’d say that only one of those is actually a skill necessary for life, and most people don’t need to learn about it in a classroom.

The sewing portion of this class consisted of making a sweatshirt from a kit. We had six colors to choose from: light blue, royal blue, pink, gray, black and white. (The funny thing is that I remember that.) The fun thing was that you could partner up with someone in the class and make a two-tone shirt. Yeah, that’s what I did. I made a light blue sweatshirt with royal blue cuffs, a royal blue pocket, and a royal blue hood – with light blue lining. I was stylin’.

Then I was all inspired. I wanted to help my mom make my prom dresses. I didn’t really help at all. I tried the things on so she could make adjustments, and I made a purse to match my senior prom dress.

Years later, something would draw me to the arts and crafts section of WalMart, where I would pick out a pattern and fabric and take it to my Mom and say, “Help me make this.” She did. I learned a lot. She helped me make another one. By that time, I learned a lot of the terminology used in the pattern directions, and I was able to buy some simple patterns and make them all by myself. My mom got a new sewing machine and I got her old one.

Then, somehow, in a way that neither of us really remember, two summers ago, Squirrel and I ended up in a situation where she wanted to make a pair of pants and I said that it would be easy. But she didn’t know how to sew, so I offered to teach her. We’ve been off and running ever since. We spend our summer weekends sewing skirts, bags, and pants. She bought her own sewing machine and she’s as good as I am now, able to follow simple pattern directions. It’s so much fun!

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a master seamstress, but I really enjoy making something from a big old piece of fabric.

I finally have a savings account. I think that my success has a lot more to do with the fact that I’m no longer sharing finances with someone who is immature and irresponsible with money.

Did you know that ideally you should have – at all times – enough money in a savings account to cover your expenses for six months? Eight months is better, because then if you find yourself without a job, you don’t have to panic and end up taking the first thing that comes along. It makes sense. Even if you don’t have much of an income, you should be making an effort to put at least 10% of it away. It’s hard! I know. But knowing that I have that little bit of money put away (and trust me, it’s not much) really gives me peace of mind and makes me feel more comfortable about taking chances and making changes in my life. It’s a worthwhile investment.

I’m not sure that I’ve even been able to choose three favorite poems yet, but I know one for sure without a doubt. My favorite poem of all time:

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.

by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

I can hardly read it without getting teary. And I’ve almost got it memorized. I know most of it by heart, just from reading it so often. Now, for the other two…