happy – Tipsy Typer

Snow Nights: Never Grow Up

I don’t know when I graduated into the world of adulthood. I can’t tell you when I began to understand (albeit loosely) aggressive retirement investment plans or the fact that pizza is not always the best idea when it comes to nutritional breakfast options. No, I am not sure when I became one of those muggle-like adults who watch the weather report while biting my lip and wondering how on earth I will make it to work on time the next morning. We grow up, we lose our magic and we get a bit boring. There- I said it, the truth is out. And while there are perks to this world of adulthood (aforementioned possibility of pizza for breakfast among them), there are a lot of moments I look back on wistfully, remembering the untempered joy I found in the most mundane things.

I remember the gleeful excitement that melted my heart every time the word ‘snow day’ was uttered. Oh, how I would run to sit in front of the tv on a school morning after the flakes had fallen the night before, desperately reading through the running scroller on our local news channel that listed every school that was blessed with such an impromptu holiday, holding my breath that the dreaded words ‘snow routes’ were not trailing behind my educational establishment’s name.

I lived for snow days, in fact, one of my all time favorite moments was that year in middle school when I swore at the end of winter break that we needed just one more week. A snow storm granted that wish. To this day I am still a firm believer that wishing hard enough will occasionally make your hopes come true.

I catch my boring adult self staring at the news when there is a whisper of a snow storm on the horizon for a very different reason than I did as a child. Now I’m watching traffic reports, planning and plotting the safest way to work, checking and rechecking how much gas is in the car and asking myself for the fifteenth time why I didn’t buy a big truck when I had the chance. As an adult, snowy flutters have become more a game of logistics and planning. Earlier to rise, listen to the news as I get ready, bundle up until I can’t put my arms down and slowly creep my way to work where I will spend the day staring longingly out the window. As an adult, I don’t get to embark on the joy of snow days. My workplace simply doesn’t really do them- I think we’ve closed perhaps twice in ten years due to inclement weather. And yet, I can never help that little flutter I feel when the first flakes fall, that ease of contented excitement as I sit by the window watching them dance after everyone is safely home. There is a magic to the snow that even my muggle-like adultness cannot quell.

Tonight it snowed- in fact, it is still snowing. It’s windy and white and beautiful as the street lamps glow against the pale blanket that covers my little corner of the world. My nephews are thrilled that they don’t have school tomorrow, my fiancé is ecstatic that even his college courses are cancelled. Politely, they all keep trying to feed my hope and offer ‘you never know, you might get a snow day too.’ I smile, but I know the truth. There is no snow day in my near future.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t take matters into my own hands and give myself a snow night. All of those joys that I will miss tomorrow- I took tonight. It was late, the world was dark and quiet when I pulled on my boots, fuzzy bathrobe and gloves and ran out into the world. Snow ball fights, snowmen, being chased by the energetic puppy- we ran, we played; we breathed life back into these old bodies of ours (well, they feel old at least). Tonight we forgot about the traffic reports, we didn’t complain about how long the snow plows take, we didn’t grumble because this means we have to get up even earlier tomorrow. No, tonight we remembered what it was like to feel that excitement we felt as kids. We stole a snow night when the world wouldn’t give us a day. The world was peaceful and calm, the quiet only shattered with the peals of our own laughter (sorry neighbors).

Tonight the little girl inside beamed with pride. Perhaps I’m not such a boring adult after all. Never forget to live in the small moments, my friends, choose joy and adventure at every turn. Even if it’s as simple as running into the snow on a cold night when you have to be up early to adult the next morning. Never grow up- not all the way, at least.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Right now I am sitting bundled up in blankets in my little office (I use this term loosely, as this little room doubles as my impromptu living room and occasional dining area- I live small). We put up our own strand of white christmas lights around the single window, and we are both working by their comforting soft glow tonight. There is a chill in the air and talk of snow next week. Yesterday at my dentist’s office we listened to all of those old holiday favorites everyone can sing along to. And tomorrow morning I have a date with my mom and sister to bake (hopefully) delicious holiday treats. It seems this year ran away with me before I could take a second to enjoy the scenery.

It is the time of year for thankfulness and small acts of kindness. A time to remember all that we have and make sure those in our lives know their importance. I can occasionally appear to be a cynic (I prefer the term realist) on the outside, but inside I have always been a hopeless romantic who falls head over heels in love with this time of year. As cliche as it sounds, it isn’t about the bows and shiny wrapping paper. It’s not even about the twinkling lights and eggnog. What I love about this season can only be found in the smallest of moments.

It’s in the way my sister’s eyes light up when she finds the perfect Christmas tree. Even at 25, the magic is never lost on her. We will tramp through the lines and lines of trees, scrutinizing every detail until our noses are as red as cherries and we can’t feel our toes. And then she spots it. She grins like she did when we were kids and she stole my first dollhouse. We make our way back with our prize slung carefully over our shoulders and warm up over hot apple cider and rice crispy treats. And then onward home to trim the little beauty in all its glory. That’s why I love this holiday- because it puts a smile on the face of a girl who doesn’t catch many breaks the rest of the year.

It’s in the way I can dance in my car on the way to work and not even feel silly (I strongly suggest Jim Carey’s The Grinch soundtrack for this activity). It’s in the pay it forward coffees as Starbucks. It’s in the excited way my nephews tell me all about their letters to Santa or proudly hold out their freshly cut paper snowflakes. It’s in the midnight snowball fights on the front yard (in which Zach will, at some point, drop some down the back of my shirt). It’s in the small little thoughts of coworkers who try to make the office a little bit brighter. It’s in the way we all speak to one another a little more kindly, smile a little broader, listen a little bit longer when we ask how the other is. It’s in the calming twinkling of those beautiful lights that dance across our faces on late night walks with the dog, all bundled up with gloves and scarves.

There is a magic to this season that is unparalleled. When you stop to enjoy the life that it breathes into a soul during these dreary winter days. There is a warmth to it that you won’t find come January or February. It’s unique, it’s comforting, it’s a hopeful conclusion to a long and busy year, holding delicately a promise for the year to come.

Welcome back, my dear, sweet holiday season. This year, may we remember what is truly important and learn to find some common ground. May we bring one another smiles and friendship without ill intentions. It is the time of year for openness and hopeful endeavors. My friends, may you find all of the love and promise that you had hoped for this season, may you rediscover the childhood joy that still sleeps within, and may you embrace the simplistic beauty that surrounds us. This year, may we find comfort building bridges to one another instead of constructing walls to hide behind. May we remember who we once were and who we still hope to become. Cheers, my dearest friends. May we all embrace this magic and hold true to the true meaning that breathes life back into our weary souls.

Going Bananas (while being chased by gorillas) – for charity.

Only in Portland will you find yourself dressed as a banana, running for your life across a bridge as a brigade of gorillas chases you. That was a snapshot of me at 9:30 this morning. Today was the first annual ‘Go Bananas’ fun run, supporting the ‘Free to Smile Foundation.’ The people who put it on were quick to let us know that they had never organized an event like that- but they did an amazing job! We were provided with costumes, food, drinks, coffee mugs, pens, keychains, banana flavored chap sticks, and shirts. The best part: every penny went to the foundation, which provides surgical and dental services to poor and underprivileged children throughout the world. A few local dentists participate and decided to help out a great cause in even more ways.

I haven’t been running in a long time, I will openly admit that I haven’t followed through with my fitness plans the past few months. But when you are presented with the rare opportunity to run through town dressed as a banana- this is not something that you can pass up. I was looking forward to it all week- singing the old ‘go banana’ cheers that I learned when I was knee high to a grasshopper (sorry, I love that saying and never get to use it). That being said, I was very surprised that I was actually able to run the majority of it. Granted, it was only a 5k, but that’s still a lot when the only marathon training you have participated in over the past few months involved Netflix or Hulu and bags of popcorn.

I had a blast, they made us feel so welcome. My mom went with me, and we met a few of my coworkers there. We got there early and were able to spend some time with great people- you would be surprised at how many inappropriate jokes you can come up with when you are dressed as a banana- I’ll spare you my witty puns, but rest assured- they were pure gold. Although, I must admit, it was a bit off-putting to be given a banana as a pre-race treat (and yet it did not stop me from actually eating it).

The dentists who were running the event dressed up as our gorillas and ran the entire thing with us- ‘chasing’ us along the trail in full costume as people (and the local fire department) took pictures. It felt good to be passing smiles along to unsuspecting people who were just out and about on their regular business and wandered by when a bunch of bananas were running down the sidewalk from a pack of hungry gorillas. All in all, I would have to say that today was a rather successful day. Another memory made, another race I will be sure to join next year, and a whole new level of motivation to get back out there and start running again. It felt so good to cross that finish line- and knowing that a few boxes of voodoo doughnuts were waiting for us didn’t hurt either.

The Neuroscience of Negativity (if you cant say anything nice…)

Last night I was at happy hour with a group of friends, there were nine of us total, carrying on a myriad of different conversations over yummy food and good drinks at our favorite Irish pub. By the end of the night, our numbers had whittled down to four. We were telling stories and venting a bit to one another when a man walked by our table and started talking to us. When he got us all to smile he clinked glasses and went on his way. When he came back through about fifteen minutes later he made a comment along the lines of ‘now what do I want to see?’ until we were all laughing and giving him the smile he asked for. While it was a fairly insignificant moment, it got me thinking about perception that others receive of us. It is all too common for us to spend a night gossiping and sharing stories of our weekly frustrations while laughing over a few drinks, and while I have never actually viewed this activity in a negative way (after all, we are usually laughing and making jokes the entire time), I couldn’t help but stop and think about the underlying stories: mainly, the weekly frustrations that life will bring and how we deal with those.

I generally try to be a positive person; I do my best to put on an optimistic front even when I don’t feel it inside because worrying others wont do anyone any good. Some days I have the fire burning inside already and nothing is going to get in the way of my good mood; but other days I have to remind myself, I have to build myself up to it. I’ve noticed that I have a harder time doing this with those that I am close to. I vent, I complain, I occasionally gossip- I do a lot of things that I’m not necessarily proud of. I fall into the negativity pit and all of the typical reasoning that comes with it. I tell myself that getting these negative feelings off of my chest will make me feel better. But, as it turns out, that is a bit of flawed thinking on my part. The truth is, the only thing that negative thinking will get you is more negative thinking. Don’t believe me? Just ask science.

Let me get my lab coat on (I don’t know why you want me to do this, I’m really not qualified to be teaching this class. Although last year I did read ‘Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep’- neuroscience explained through the afflictions of the zombie-kind). But, I’m dressed for the part and I wear glasses- that must make me a reputable teacher. Lesson one of neuroscience: synapses that fire together wire together. Let’s start off by explaining how this whole process works; now, the brain is a complicated creation that I wont even pretend to understand. So this overview isn’t going to be particularly technical.

Nerve cells make connections with one another in circuits that we refer to as neural pathways. These nerve cells, however, never actually touch, they just get very close together. If you have siblings, then the best example of this is when you would sit in the back of the car and they would hover their finger right over your face saying ‘but I’m not touching you’ whenever you tried to shoo them away. Unless that was just my childhood? Anyway, back to the lesson: So you have two very close neurons that cannot make physical contact. So how to they pass messages from one to the other? (Fifty points to Gryffindor if you get it right before reading ahead). Answer: Through the synapse! Ah sure, but what the heck is that? Well, I’m glad you asked. A synapse is a structure that allows one neuron to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron over a gap known as the synaptic cleft. They are vitally important, essentially acting as the pathway for your thoughts. Now, the body is an amazing example of efficiency. Whenever you have a thought (like you are right now), a synapse will shoot a chemical across the cleft to another synapse (think Spiderman slinging string to the building across the street), which effectively ‘builds a bridge’ that an electrical signal can then cross over. This signal carries the information that is pertinent to your thought. (I don’t know why, but I always picture a super secret FBI agent with a briefcase full of top secret documents.)

Now, as I said before, the body is nothing if not economical. You see, every time an electric signal gets triggered, the synapses involved start to grow closer together in an effort to make their job easier. Their goal is to decrease the distance that the signal has to pass over to get from Point A to Point B. To keep the FBI analogy; its much easier to transport your top secret information from one room to another, as opposed to hopping in a car and driving across town. Isn’t that amazing? The brain will literally rewire its own circuitry to make it easier for you. It physically changes its internal map to line up the proper synapses together, effectively making it easier for that particular thought to trigger.

To put this in perspective of your daily life: think of some of those recurring habits you have: do you compulsively check your phone or social media? I bet it started with you getting bored and poking on your phone once or twice. But over time this compulsion grew, and pretty soon you are opening it and poking around on Facebook with virtually no thought behind it. You didn’t even realize you were doing it, but you were literally programming yourself to follow these habits. The shorter distance between the synapses makes these recurring thoughts more likely to occur. You are conditioning yourself for specific behaviors and thoughts- and you don’t even know you are doing it. Starts to make a bit more sense, doesn’t it?

This process can be a phenomenal asset- if you use it correctly. When you fall into the trap of bad thinking though; it is a dangerous weapon. You see, when you start thinking negatively or listening to negative speech- your brain is programming itself to follow this trend, those synapses are getting closer together and making it easier for that negative thought to reappear again. These close synapses not only make negative thoughts easier to come by, they also make it more likely for other negative thoughts to just randomly occur throughout your day, like when you are walking down the street without anything in particular on your mind (Scary, isn’t it?). Basically, by sinking into this thought pattern you are changing your personality to a gloomier outlook. As Steven Parton explains, “Through repetition of thought, you’ve brought the pair of synapses that represent your [negative] proclivities closer and closer together, and when the moment arises for you to form a thought…the thought that wins is the one that has less distance to travel, the one that will create a bridge between synapses fastest.” It is literally a race for thoughts.

This is not just an internal dilemma; suddenly it becomes very important who you surround yourself with. Humans are notoriously empathetic creatures (though it doesn’t always seem that way).During our evolution our survival hinged on the connections we could make with others. We are a species that thrive in small groups. What is the easiest way to make a connection? Through shared experiences and emotions. It’s in our wiring; when we see someone in an emotional state- good or bad, our own brains try that feeling on for size; by that, I mean that it tries to imagine what the other person is experiencing. Have you ever watched a video of people laughing? Something so simple- try not to smile yourself when you watch it. The reason why it’s so hard: your brain wants to relate to them, it wants to mirror their emotions to find common ground. How does it delve into this imagined world? Well, it fires those synapses, of course- attempting to emulate what it is seeing in the other person, effectively allowing you to ‘relate’ to them. Ever hear of ‘mob mentality’? Well, this is where that comes from- good or bad, we want to have common ground with other people. This explains the hype we all collectively begin to feel at a concert or sporting event- or the way we vent exhaustively at happy hour with our best friends.

You follow the same thought patterns as those around you; that’s why toxic relationships can be so potent and drag you down so quickly. That is also why you feel so refreshed and energized by that ‘happy friend’ you have who doesn’t seem to be effected by the negativity of life. I have a friend from high school who I only get to see a few times a year because we both live busy lives on opposite sides of the state. But every time I see her, I feel like a better person, I admire her outlook on life, it is contagious. My advice- hold onto these friends, do not lose touch. Find people that you want to be like and embrace their outlook. Look at yourself and decide which person you want to be- do you want people to walk away refreshed because of your attitude, or do you want to complain about the daunting trivialities of your daily life. You have a choice- the brain is an amazing creation; if it is capable of wiring itself one way, it is also capable of going in the other direction.

My fiancé has a trick that he learned a while ago; you write your goals or positive thoughts on a notecard. You read it in the morning when you first wake up and right before you go to bed. You carry it with you in your wallet and read it whenever you need to remind yourself. Why does this work? Because you are actively reminding yourself to think these thoughts, effectively forcing your brain to rewire itself to promote this new way of thinking. It moves those synapses closer together so that it becomes your default thinking, eventually weeding out those negative thoughts you once fought with.

At the end of the day, it is up to you how you will see the world. You get to determine which synapses fire together. You get the colors to shade your world in. Bright or dreary- the world is your canvas. At least now you understand why you may fall into these ruts, and you know how to get out of them. You can also understand why your outlook will not just change overnight. It takes a conscious effort to rewire a new way of thinking. Knowledge is power, as they say. Use it wisely, my friends.

Salty Sea Air, Sun and Silence

There is an inconspicuous little house on a beach somewhere, in a little town that is known for it’s local vibes as opposed to a tourist feel. It is the getaway for people like me who want the salty sea air and silence. It is the tourist destination for the hermits who don’t like tourists. My home is very busy; hell, my life is very busy- sometimes all you need is a time out in a not-so-far-away place. This has become my haven when the world gets too loud and pushy. I have an escape just a few hours away from my home.

When the world gets too busy, I crave the outdoors; long wooded trails, overhanging trees, the burbling of a river; nature makes me feel like myself again. But sometimes a walk through the woods just isn’t enough when you know you have to come back out again. Sometimes all you want is a reprieve, a quite place where you can turn off your phone if you wish and just curl up with a good book. Sometimes you need to put down your weekend warrior garb, hop in the car and drive off into the sunset for a change of scenery.

I don’t come to the beach as often as I like, but every time I do I can feel my soul coming back to life, waking up from it’s overloaded catatonia. There is something calming about rolling sea waves and light winds, about late night storms and warm blankets. There is something invigorating about combing the beach for sea shells as the puppy chases the sandpipers and sea gulls, or cooking dinner side by side with your partner in crime. There is something healing about hours spent reading books and watching old movies. There is something beautiful in the simplicity of this temporary beach life.

When I was a little kid we used to come to this same beach with my grandparents and all of my aunts, uncles and cousins. We would spend whole weekends here with the gang, and I remember how much I loved it. That was before life and family got so complicated. Now I’m only a few doors down from that old house; and while it’s proximity is comforting, it’s nice to be somewhere a little bit different, a place that has room for new experiences instead of crowding me with old memories and phantoms of my past.

This morning I sit here with a cup of hot coffee, the sun pouring in through the window. It’s quiet as Zach and Link (the dog) are both still sleeping. All that I hear are the comforting clicks from my keyboard. It’s the perfect way to spend the morning. In a few minutes I am sure that they will both be up. We will drink our coffee while we cook breakfast together, dodging popping bacon grease and attempting the master the pancake flip. Then we will grab our sweatshirts and mosey out to the beach for one more lazy walk with the dog before we come back, clean, pack up the car, and make our way back to civilization.

When we get home we will jump back into the fray like we had never left. But my soul will feel lighter, my smile will be broader, the sparkle will be back in my eyes. Because when I escape my regular world, I rediscover myself. I can go back to my life and appreciate the sounds because I have been enveloped by the calming silence.

Until next time, you beautiful place, I will miss you. Because there will always be a next time. This is my safe place, the spot that restores my soul, the calm in the eye of the storm. This is where I remember who I am; and don’t we all need something like that?

What about you, my friends? What is your escape? Is it a place, a thing, an activity? What makes you feel whole in this busy world of ours?