Leaping From Buildings Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

As I watched the last episode of Mad Men I kept thinking about my generation's real life version of all these pieces of the puzzle we watched unfold around Don Draper. The series left off where we caught up in real life as young adults. In 1971 we were burgeoning into a world filled with the Vietnam war, and having survived way too many assassinations. It was a time of trying to desperately shift anew. Thank you, Mad Men for making it so real. It's been a poignant ride, to... say the least.

Peace and love, not war and product. This final episode wove in the hippie commune, yoga, meditation, the EST-like group therapy movement (look it up!), women's rights and even that famous Coca Cola commercial. The origins of so much we forget didn't start today. What on earth is it like to see that last episode when you don't remember these things? Did it even make sense? Did it seem trite and comical? Fake and ridiculous? All I know is that for me it was tactile. I could feel it all over again.

Watching Mad Men all these years has been a bizarre way to do time travel. A place where I could see, touch, feel and relive my younger life, down to the every little set piece, outfit, décor, mindset, political snafu and shaping trend. A time of Yoga and meditation: brought to us purely by Paramahansa Yogananda, not marketed en masse by Lululemon.

This may have been an entertaining show for some to learn history through fictional characters, or dissect its art form but for others of us - well, it felt like home. It was the life perspective lens from which our generation formed our values and chose the path of our future. The 50-60-70's. Painful, dysfunctional, naïve, oppressive, simple, hopeful, horrible, thrilling. A post-war juggernaut speeding us forward to the unknown.

The unknown better known as Now. What a ride.

Coming and Going

"Swimming with dolphins! That is definitely one of them.” I was flipping through the pages of a magazine and dreaming out loud in response to seeing a dolphin in an ad. “If I made a Bucket List, I think swimming with dolphins would be near the top."

“Huh.” said my husband who smiled at me, but seemed to be half listening. I know that place. It's possible I perfected it. The I-am-not-listening-to-one-word-you-are-really-saying-as-you-have-said-all-this-so-many-times-in-40 years- I-know-all-the-details-already, sort of listening. It’s an art actually. Couples who have been together for decades often master the technique. We just need to hear the topic, vocalize a sound, and let the other know we have all the details, on file. Merely indicate we are still here. Still here, 40 years later listening to all those dreams and catching each other with casual conversation.

“Swimming with dolphins. Going on a whale watch. Seeing horses run wild. ..”

“….Going on an African safari…”

“YES! Going on an African safari!!! Right?! That has always been my number one, thanks. Huh. I don’t think I ever realized 'til right now just how many of my dreams involve animals.” My mind began to wander as I flipped the pages of the magazine and saw another ad.

I paused on a photo of a woman doctor, in her white uniform holding a stethoscope and talking to a patient with gray hair. A young doctor serving an elderly patient. It was an ad for some kind of heart medicine but before I cared to learn more, my mind had begun to think differently about what I saw.
“Now there something I’ll never do. Be a doctor. I am finally too old to think I’ll ever have time to be a doctor.” I said emphatically as I turned the photo for my husband to see. As if seeing it made it personal.

“You never wanted to be a doctor! How can that be upsetting?!”
“Well, it’s not upsetting. I’m just sayin. Even if I wanted to do it, at this age - it’s now officially off the list. It’s not even possible. Like .. playing tennis professionally. Becoming a French chef. Or biologically having more babies.” These disparate choices sounded so bizarre that even I began to recalibrate toward finding a point. “Ok, there are things you just can’t even pretend are possible anymore. Know what I mean? You age out, or your body can’t do it. People may have Bucket Lists of dreams they still want to do but no one talks a lot about the list you suddenly can't do anymore. They just start fading away as being anything remotely possible. Maybe that's why we create Bucket Lists."

My husband gently put his book down and turned his body a wee bit to his left, to face me. It seemed I was wading in murky territory now and he may need to throw me a line sometime soon. If I’m not careful I might get all melancholy or cynical about dreams lost and careers never crafted.
I decided using him as an example might help my point. “It would be like you becoming a professional baseball player. Right? Or being in the Olympics! Or walking the Appalachian trail!!"
"I did walk the Appalachian trail!!!"
 
"Oh. Yeah. Well, you know what I mean. Ya know? All that kind of fantasy stuff that keeps you thinking you might someday, even though you never really could, or would even want to."
We both quietly paused and looked away. Far away into that safe place where older people meet their younger selves and take a wistful look around. It was a short trip, as now I saw the comparison.
 
“Ok, so:
If all those dreams you still want to do before you die is called A Bucket List, then what do you think THIS list is called? The opposite of a A Bucket List is called…”

“A F*ck It List.”

Yes!!! Love this man.

Breaking Away

It took one second to happen, a few minutes to focus and days later before I realized the meaning.



Late, last Friday afternoon in a small parking lot on campus there was a loud, thud sound in the side street beside me, which made me look up as it was simultaneous to a speeding car driving by.  I remember thinking it might have been a muffler backfiring but then I became distracted by my own judgements.  It had been a black, very shiny Hummer-like brand new car speeding by which found me weighing in narrowly on students of privilege.  It was Little 500 weekend, and apparently it was starting off with a bang.



Just then I saw it.  In the middle of the street.  It was gray, oval shaped, really large and sort of rocking back and forth.  Part of me didn’t care to find out what it was while another part of me got very curious.  A third part froze, as for some reason it now looked to be a huge hornet’s nest.  A gigantic hornet’s nest, rocking in the middle of the road immediately after that car from another planet drove by.  It was like a quiet emergency with no one around to witness, but me.  Soon it seemed it would find its balance and be still.  A quiet emergency of a rocking hornet’s nest, ready to explode with potentially more disgruntled hornets inside from hell than any sci-fi movie could conjure.  A hornet’s nest from … wait a minute.  Why would students be throwing out a hornet’s nest from their car? How does a Hummer get a humungous hornet’s nest inside it in the first place? Should I be calling 911?  It was then that my left brain took over and gave my imagination a time out. 



By now the swaying had settled and the large gray, oval shaped object was finally still.  There it sat, in the middle of the street, like a meteor landing from outer space with no one around to see it.  It was then I decided I needed to learn more.  Carefully.



I walked slowly toward it, very slowly. Rushing over in any way seemed synonymous with a death wish. As I got closer, I could see there were layers to it, and was imagining all the small hornet nests I had seen in my life which always have struck me as being a magnificent insect papier-mâché project.  Each step brought it more into focus.  It was like being at the eye doctor when they put a round lens in the slot and ask you if you can see better now.  How about now?  Now?  Well, now it was clear it wasn’t a hornet’s nest after all.  It was the head of a Buddha. 



A head of a large Buddha statue had landed in the middle of the road on a Friday afternoon in front of me during Little 500 Weekend in the land of Breaking Away.  I’ve seen a lot of crazy in twenty years of the Best College Weekend so, to be honest, this was just silly.  Until my heart caught up with my head.  A Buddha statue is sacred.  It is considered one of the most important parts of the body of the Buddha as it represents infinite knowledge as the Awakened One.  A headless Buddha statue in the middle of a road is wrong, on myriad levels. Everything got very quiet and I wished I wasn’t alone. 



There aren’t any employee manuals for this one. No lessons to learn on how to make decisions when the head of broken Buddha statue is suddenly randomly in a street, and needs to be removed.  Or needs to find its home.  Or body.  It’s a moment gingerly balancing comedy and tragedy, piety and purpose.



I was frozen in place in the parking lot pondering these deep thoughts when a young man slowly began walking down the steep steps from his porch on the other side of this small street.  We were both in this moment together and yet he didn’t see me at all.  He stepped slowly forward, but then bravely onto the sidewalk, then eventually into the street.  I had decided he was the chosen savior and me, merely the elder to someday tell the tale.   This youthful soul stood over the beheaded Buddha and did nothing, for a long time.  Or a few seconds, which is an eternity when you experience universe perplexity.  He seemed to be gathering information as well, and then took his foot and nudged the head gently.  Then again, as if to wake it up.  Then he glanced right, then slowly left and back down but never forward to see me.  Finally, he tenderly picked it up.  It took a bit for him to find the balance of it all.  Then he simply carefully carried it back up the stairs and went inside.  
  

I left.  I regretted it, but I left.  I told myself it seemed better left alone and held no real information.



That weekend I almost went back to knock on the young man’s door to find out what he had actually done with it.  Maybe it was stolen and needed reporting.  Something I can’t quite frame seemed to make me want to ask, but something equally urgent immediately stopped me. By now it may have been recycled as a footstool, a beer bong holder or a kitschy knick-knack.  It would all seem no big deal to most but I was struggling with the responsibility and meaning of it all.  In all likelihood, it may simply have just gone into the trash.  It was a busy college weekend and I moved on to other much more important things. 
 
Days later the parallel hit me like a thud.  I had spent the week seeking out news stories and photographer’s captures regarding the earthquake in Nepal, which had happened early Saturday morning of Little 500 weekend.  Thousands had died, and millions of sacred pieces were destroyed. It seemed we were a world in mourning a tragedy a lifetime away.  Then I saw it.  These stunning captures showed temples in ruins, people in shock, homes demolished and lives lost. It was heartbreaking. 


The streets were filled with people, its culture, faiths and traditions in shock.

And statues of broken Buddha’s all around. 

(Photo: A Buddha statue is surrounded by debris from a collapsed temple in the UNESCO world heritage site of Bhaktapur in Nepal. Image: Omar Havana/Getty Images)