The Advanced Student

I love the self-confidence that can accompany being a student.

I went to a local massage clinic tonight.  Been there many times. The quality of the student bodywork ranges from marvelous to “wow, you sure have picked the wrong profession.” Yet, more times than not, for $35, it fulfills its purpose. 

Tonight was probably my 50^th time there in the past four years. A lovely young man greeted me with a smile. At the clinic you don’t know the gender of your massage therapist nor the type of massage you will receive before hand. I ask him what type of massage will he being doing tonight?

He pauses. They never pause, so I feel a bit on edge.  He tells me that he is an advanced student so I can have whatever type of massage I like. Inside I chuckle. An advanced student can not have been in the business for too long, right? But something about the way he says that he is an advanced student is interesting to me.  Sure there was some cockiness to it, but he also conveyed a genuine feeling of confidence in his abilities.

Turns out, he was a rock star and a rookie at the same time. Great hands, kind heart, good energy match. There was nothing tentative about his touch.  Most students hesitate and fumble a bit as they find their way in the session.  Each point of contact had solidness to it.  And what he lacked in a touch that only comes with decades, still melted through the layers of my muscles.

I left smiling. Yet the gift that I took away wasn’t in the massage, directly. It was his embodiment of what it means to be an advanced student. The combination of the confidence and care he conveyed with his hands, and his hubris.

For me, being an advanced student reminds me of all I have still to learn. For him being an advanced student meant that he had a lot to offer.

Thank you for the lesson – from one who is learning news ways to advance my learning.

Sofa vs Couch

Sometimes a sofa is just a sofa and sometimes, well, sometimes it’s more complicated.  Apparently a couch is not a sofa, but a sofa can be a couch.

It all started with my dad, or rather, someone who knew my dad.  I was on a small six seater, dual prop plane en route from Nantucket to Boston.  It was kind of plane where you have to tell your weight, your true weight, before boarding in order to ensure a safe flight. Turns out the woman next to me knows my dad.  I guess that’s what comes from small island living.  They met at a beauty salon.  My dad, unbeknownst to me, gets his hair cut at a beauty salon.  The woman, a mother of three, was telling me that my dad was informing her of the difference between a sofa and a couch while they were both getting their hair done. How this topic came up in ordinary conversation, I cannot tell you.

She proceeded to explain it to me, as my father has many times before. And I was amazed.  It had never occurred to me that he carried this topic of conversation into the real world.  I always thought it was “shop talk” – things that had to do with his lifetime of work in the furniture accessory business.

Truth be told, I never really got it. What the difference was. No matter how many times, he told me, it just didn’t stick.  Frankly, it just didn’t matter enough to keep hold of the info. I mean who cares, right? But when this total stranger took to heart my dad’s teachings, I felt guilty.  Clearly, I was a lousy daughter if I could not even retain this one clear distinction, sofa vs couch.

So I did a little sample survey when I got home. I wanted to know how many of my friends actually knew what the difference was. No one knew that there was any difference at all.  In fact, several accused my father of making up the distinction.

Want to know? Finding yourself a tiny bit curious? Turns out, it depends who you ask.  My dad would say, with great authority, that a couch has no arms and is not for sitting on, but only to lie down.  A sofa, on the other hand, has arms and a back and is upholstered.  He also believes that a sofa is of higher quality than a couch, though I have yet to find an on-line source that will corroborate this.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn about the etymology of words and about my dad.  Think I will take a seat on a couch, sofa, or bench.  I have a lot of to do.

Sad New Years

                                                                                                                              Photo by Jodi 


                        " I walked a mile with Pleasure and 
                        She chatted all the way.

                        But she left me none the wiser 
                        for all she had to say.

                        I walked a mile with Sorrow. 
                        And ne'er a word said she.

                       But, oh! The things I learned from her, 
                       when sorrow walked with me."
                                    - Robert Browning Hamilton
                                            

I haven’t showered all year. I haven’t paid bills all year and I haven’t felt good all year.  Of course it is only 15 or so hours into the new year, but please allow me this one slight attempt at humor.  Every new year upon waking, for about 35 years now, I always tell my mom, dad and sister all the things I have not done all year.  I’m sure it was clever when I was seven, now it is simply tradition.  One small tradition in a long line of traditions that have left me squarely in the past.

In his book The Geography of Time, Robert Levine speaks of people who live primarily in past time and wax nostalgic.  You know the type, the ones who make family scrap books and hold all the old family stories.  Without realizing it, I have become one of those folks.  I cherish my past connections and memories.  I work hard at keeping them alive, as much as something that is over can be kept alive.  Whether it is the town I grew up in, old friends, childhood books, or the ghosts of 30 year old summer memories. I take them out and pump life back into them through i-photo slide shows and sharing stories with my family and friends of by-gone days. 

I suppose it is a natural thing to do.  As we age, we want to keep the past alive.  Lately though I have been stuck there.  Stuck in the memories of the beaches of my youth, my first clam chowder, old songs and stories, and the like.  And I find that the more I live in the past, the less present I am to the present.  I find that I must let the past go. 

I don’t know how the past came to dominate my life.  It didn’t happen all at once.  But in this the year, this day, this moment I know what I must do.

Many spend the new year making resolutions or being grateful for what they have.  I am not there. I am spending the new year mourning.  Mourning how the past has gripped the life out of my present.  I’m not being out in the world, but accompanying my sadness.  Letting go.  Going through clothes and books and trinkets.  Bagging them up and moving them out.

And in being with my sadness, I have heard more than I have in a long time.  I have experienced a sad new year and it feels right.  For I can not know about my present until I make some space for it.