2015

Posted on November 28, 2015 by rangotti

Twenty-eight years ago, the universe gave me a gift. I was given the privilege of being the mother of an amazing daughter. Since the moment they laid her in my arms, I have adored her. We are so different in so many ways, it was always a mystery to me how she understood the things she did with no help from her mother. I am a tomboy, makeup confuses me, and I am totally devoid of any ability to be stylish or match colors together. My daughter is the exact opposite. She is stunningly lovely and from the time she was a small child, she picked out her own clothes, styled her own hair and had a special affinity toward shoes and purses. A dancer, cheerleader, interior designer, my daughter is very feminine.

The challenge for me as a parent was to let her be who she was and not try to make her into me. I am a very linear, direct thinker. My daughter’s thought process is like being on a tilt-o-whirl. Her mind goes from one idea to the next, it is something to behold and I wouldn’t want her to be any other way. My prayer while she was growing up was to always let her have the space to find her own way and to always accept her for who she is.

Emerging Designer of the Year

She is one of the most creative human beings I have ever met. Whether with a paintbrush, a CAD drawing, or her own feet in dance, she has always had a way to see things in her mind’s eye that I could only imagine and she is able to portray those images through whatever artistic medium of her choice. She is brilliant and I have always been amazed and sometimes intimidated by her. She is beautiful, successful and a wonderful person.

With the birth of a daughter, at some time a parent’s thoughts will turn to the future and the day she will get married. I don’t know why it is that way, but it is. I am no different. I remember that moment, looking down at this beautiful baby, hoping that I would one day see her wedding day. I remember wishing for my daughter that her wedding would be everything she wanted it to be: a beautiful bride, a heartfelt ceremony, a wonderful husband, a sunny day, surrounded by people who love her. All those things have come to fruition for tomorrow is my daughter’s wedding day.

There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things I want her to know. There are things I have told her over and over, but she doesn’t believe me. As she gets older, I hope she will someday see herself the way that I see her. My daughter is beautiful, capable, fierce, independent, intelligent, and creative. She has a presence that shows an understanding and awareness of the world around her that I have never had. She lights up a room when she walks into it, she makes everyone feel welcomed. She is gracious, charming and elegant. She is a force to be reckoned with and a joy to behold. She is a steel magnolia. And tomorrow she becomes a bride.

Who is this man she has given her heart to? He is kind, generous, compassionate, caring, funny, smart, and he looks at my daughter with a love that is tangible. I could not have envisioned a better mate for her. He believes in her and encourages her to reach for her dreams. He lets her be exactly who she is and does not try to change her into something that would destroy her amazing spirit. He is a wonderful human being. Like my daughter, my son-in-law is also a creative person. His paintings are so poignant, so thought provoking, his talent takes my breath away. Together, their lives will be filled with emotion, beauty, color, freedom, spirituality, and romance.

So on this eve of their wedding, the joy in my heart overflows. Tomorrow, I get to watch this child that I have loved with all my heart marry the man that fills her heart to completion. It will be an honor to see them pledge their lives to each other knowing that they are stronger together than either one is separately. Regardless of details, their day will be perfect because they get to be married to each other.

first communion jessica ~So to my wonderful daughter, I want you to know that all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy and have a well lived life. I want you to believe about yourself the things I know about you. You are unique. There is no one like you. I want for you to not be afraid to give your whole heart to the man you love, it is the key to being happy in your marriage.

~To Jessica and Ethan, here is my practical advice. Love each other. Treat each other with respect. Dance around your apartment. Talk to each other. Listen. Compromise. Remember how you felt at this moment. And if you ever have a dispute that you can’t seem to resolve, get naked.

And always remember that I love you with all my heart. It is an honor to be your mother.

Happy Wedding Day Jessica and Ethan!

Love,

Robin

Passion and Pixie Dust…

Posted on November 1, 2015 by rangotti

The other day, I clicked on my memories in Facebook and when I did, this old blog came up. When I read what I wrote two years ago about the person I wanted to be, I had to be reminded that I am that person. I have the characteristics I admired in my friends, I have grown and allowed myself to become what I wanted to be. However, just like with many lessons in life, sometimes things need to be revisited.

View from the porch with the fog rolling down the valley

A year ago, I came off sabbatical, got a fabulous house, moved into a fantastic new job that challenged me and had the thought of “I have arrived”. Hmmm, it is almost like I regressed and forgot all of those lessons I learned. I have been in this “stuck” headspace, feeling something deeply lacking in my life and divorced from any sense of community. I have been on autopilot. So I realized it was time to renew the blog, and write another manifesto for where I wanted to go now.
Recently, someone pointed out to me that it is my spirit and passion that draws people to me, not my intelligence or sense of adventure. It reminded me that my friend Matt once said, “Robin, you have this beautiful carefree spirit that you put walls around by intellectualizing. Let that spirit out. It won’t appeal to everyone, just the people who want to be in your life.” I think I need a little more practice on that area.

So I started writing the manifesto and asking myself some questions like, now what? Where do I go from here? Where am I going in this life next?

The first words I wrote on the page were that I want to live my life with integrity and transparency, honoring the strengths that I have found in myself and not making excuses for the weaknesses. I want my words to match my actions in everything I do in life. Two years ago, I set out on a journey that made me focus inward and that journey was successful in helping me to be the person I am today. Now, having met all those goals, in order to move on, I have to focus outward. How am I giving back to the world that has given me so much? What am I doing to make my community better; personally, professionally, locally and globally? And how do I allow that spirit and passion to be infused in everything I do? Because to live with integrity, I have to let that spirited, passionate woman come out in all the areas of my life.

Software designed to help people learn math.

Professionally, I have a pretty well articulated vision of what I want to do and who I want to be. With the help of a great group of colleagues from around the country, the vision remains crystal clear and I have no problem striving toward it because it flows from my passion. I want to be an integral member of a department that is willing to take pedagogical risks to research and find the best practices in mathematics education for all students for the 21st century. I don’t want mathematics to be a gatekeeper, weeding people out of STEM disciplines. I want it to be a gateway for any student who chooses to walk through the gate on their way to whatever career they desire. I don’t believe we will solve the problems of the world by doing the same thing over and over again. We need new ideas from places we haven’t thought of for humanity to move forward. That means more scientists, engineers, computer programmers, mathematicians that are from underrepresented groups in those fields. I want my voice to add to the conversation of how to make that happen.

Nana and Brody dancing in the kitchen

Baking Easter Cake with Brooklyn and Charlotte

Personally, I haven’t had as clear a vision. I just know that I have been feeling a soul-sucking lack of community lately. The only time I feel that I am fully connected and being myself is when I am around my grandchildren. With them, I am this carefree spirit, willing to take personal risks of looking stupid or failing, in order to achieve real connection with them. A whole continent separates us, so I don’t want to spend our precious time together having to peel through layers of social constraints. I am present with them, in the moment, and in the moment we don’t care what our hair looks like, how fit we are, or what our bank balance is. We are just there.

Joy

I listen to what their dreams are, take into account what they want and need, and then allow myself to be outrageously myself while I try to meet those needs in ways that encourage their growth. And through their failures and successes, I listen to their laughter which, in turn, floods my soul with happiness. We dance around the kitchen, bake cookies, go to the library, play in the park, look at nature, pretend we are horses and gallop around, we make mistakes and celebrate tremendous successes. The word that defines how I am with them is carefree. I am a Nana who is doused with pixie dust that I want to spread al over them.

Climbing Seminary Hill during the 7 Hills of Kirkland Ride

I want to find a community in which I can be that way, where I can let that spirit and passion be present and be accepted. Matt is right, to find that, I have to be that because people who will accept me will gravitate toward it. So my personal manifesto is to embrace my crazy. I want to be that person that lets her spirit and passion be first and foremost in her life. In looking outward, it is that carefree, passionate part of me that will impact my local and global community the most. There are lots of people in the world who are more intellectual than I am, who have way more financial resources than I do, who are more beautiful, more fit, more creative. But there is no one that has my unique spirit.

Rachel riding a coffee ride with me. I know I have made as much of a difference in Rachel’s life as she has in mine.

So who do I want to be? I want to be a Pixie Dust spreader. I want to be this carefree person who uses her passion (for adventure, art, cooking, travel, cycling, mathematics, learning, people, and whatever else happens to interest me) to engage with other people, especially those who have not had the same opportunities as I have, not for my own self-gratification but to give back to a world that has given me so much. I want to be a person who asks about other’s dreams and goals, who listens to what they need, and then who helps in whatever way I can as they make their dreams come to fruition. I want to be supportive when they struggle and I want to celebrate with joy the accomplishments of their hard work and watch as they thrive. I want to be a person who commits my time, resources and passions to people that are willing to try, to risk, to live. I want to give back to the world to honor all the people who did that for me.

“Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.” ~Howard Thurman

Begin with the end in mind

Posted on September 30, 2014 by rangotti

I have always found transition times to be challenging. That includes good and bad transitions. It is hard to believe that I ever had the courage to go on sabbatical this past year or to take many of the leaps of faith I have taken throughout my life. So many people think I am this free spirited adventurer. I laugh at that a lot. What no one sees is what is going on in my head.

As I finished sabbatical, I have been blessed with no only a year of amazing adventures, but from many things that have happened to me in the last month alone. I have to admit, I am a little overwhelmed. I have a new grandson who I got to hold before he was even an hour old. My lovely and talented daughter is getting married and I got to see her try on the dress that she will get married in. I have a beautiful new home, a new office and a great new job. I love my students. So why am I overwhelmed?

It is a transition time, and for me, my life has been filled with a lot of negative changes. I can handle those. I expect those. It is almost harder to handle the positive ones, to step in and feel deserving of the wonderful life I have now. I have been in a funk, almost paralyzed to get anything done. Today, I am attempting to change my paralysis and get back to my routine and taking care of myself. In order to do that, I realized, I have to start somewhere, so I am going to start at the beginning.

Over a year ago, I filled 8 boxes with my treasures. Those boxes, my gear, a few clothes, and a rock where the only things I had left. I had given up all my other possessions: house, furniture, dishes, all of it. I stored them in my office and now they are in my garage. Today, right now, it is time to unpack those boxes and face my life. It is time to get unstuck.

Lesson Five: Be who you want to be

Posted on August 30, 2014 by rangotti

One of the best things about writing this blog has been all the responses I have received from people around the world. Some said “thank you for sharing so openly, it has helped me realize I am not alone”. Some have told me their stories. Others have asked for advice, questions such as “I am over my head in debt, how do I pay it off” to “I am not happy in my life but I don’t know how to change it, can you help”. I am not qualified to give anyone advice. I can only tell you how I dealt with similar problems.

One of my greatest take-aways from sabbatical is that I don’t just have to be who I think I am. I can be who I want to be. All my life, I have wanted to be this adventure girl. I wanted to be joyfully spontaneous and just willing to try things on a whim. I wanted to be athletic and participate in adventure sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, skiing off-piste, paragliding, climbing… you get the idea. I also wanted to be the sophisticated urban dweller and world traveler. I put those dreams aside when I had children and raised my family. I was responsible, a great high school teacher, a good university professor, a decent mother and wife. I took care of everyone. When I got divorced an moved to Seattle, I was a frumpy, middle class, 44 year old housewife from a small town in North Carolina, and I thought those kind of adventures were behind me. If you have read this blog, you realize that moving to Seattle was when I met Matt Tony, Ken, Rachel, Shaun, Deloa, Melinda, Rachelle, Keri and so many more great friends.. the list goes on and on here as well as all my friends from the Lounge and my own children, Patrick and Jessica who have cheered me and encouraged me every step of the way.

My friends opened my world and my mind to all the things that were possible, regardless of my age, weight, marital status, debt, … none of that matters. Those were all excuses to keep me paralyzed to whatever dysfunctional fear I happened to be harboring at the time. The one single thing I needed to learn was that all I had to do was try. I didn’t have to be perfect or even successful the first time, or the 27th time, I just had to keep trying. It didn’t matter if I was laughed at, judged, or taunted. I have learned that those kinds of limiting comments from other people aren’t about me, they are about the shallowness and fears of the person who is uttering them. I don’t take those kind of comments personally anymore. I am a different person. I am the person I have always wanted to be.

I set out on a journey to carve out a new identity. I thought that meant discovering who I am. It didn’t. I realized that it meant creating who I am. It is funny, as I have been reflecting on sabbatical and all the years since I moved to Seattle, my train of thought started with “I didn’t”, and “I am not” until about a month ago when trying to write this blog post and I asked myself, “so what HAVE you done?”. It was a perspective altering question.

I have rolled a kayak, climbed mountains, and jumped off those mountains in both a harness and with a wing on my back. I have skied through powder, down fall lines, under chairlifts and on glaciers. I have ridden bikes on several continents, in varied conditions with incredible people. I have ordered great wine and decadent food in restaurants all over the world. I have met new people everywhere I have gone and listened to their stories, learned about their lives, and shared the fires of the passions that light up their souls. I gave away all the trappings of my former life, my furniture, clothing, and emotional baggage. I have lived without a home or safety net to return to. I have fed endangered vultures from my hand both on the ground and while gliding in the air looking out over the Himalayas. I have traveled alone, with no plan and no itinerary, going where I wanted, seeing what interested me, meeting new people. I have faced loneliness, fear, isolation, sickness, different cultures, ostracization, and just about every human condition you can imagine.

When I read that list, what is clear to me is that I am not the person that I was anymore. I am strong, courageous, adventurous, athletic, urban, classy, loving, compassionate, giving, open… in other words, I am the person I have always wanted to be. How did I, a non-athletic, frumpy, boring, small-town, middle-class housewife do it? How did I learn to roll a boat, ski off-piste, order great wine, solo travel, talk to strangers, and give up all my possessions? The answer is simple, I tried. I set out on a course that was hard and just kept going. Overcoming obstacles, wanting to quit (many, many times), I learned and grew. I refused to stay in the dysfunction I was in and did the work necessary to have the life I wanted. Even though that sounds simple, it was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have no regrets.

Before I left on sabbatical, I had a chance to change course and stay in Seattle to be able to get the perfect house. I wanted that house so badly, I almost didn’t go on my journey because of it. The house was just an excuse to hide my fear however. Instead, I listened to my advisors and went on sabbatical anyway knowing that there would be another perfect house when I returned. I have thought of that house many times while I lived my homeless, nomadic life. In the last couple of weeks I started house hunting again. Guess what? THE house, the same one, was available and now it is mine. So for all my worry, I took the chance anyway and walked away from the safe choice. Now I have a house again or at least I will on Sept 15 and not just any house but the house I dreamed of. Until September 15, I am hanging out with my beautiful granddaughters waiting for their brother to come into the world any day now. So at the end of this incredible year, not only am I a new person but I will have a new home, a new job, and a new grandson.

It makes me happy to know that I am setting a great example for my grandchildren that life isn’t about limits, it is about challenging what limits us. Our biggest limitation is believing that we can’t change who we think we are.

Lesson Four: Order is Important

Posted on July 18, 2014 by rangotti

Everyone is different. Some people may thrive on chaos and lack of scheduling. Those people aren’t me. Maybe it is the mathematician in me, but I like order, I like planning, and I thrive on having a schedule. That doesn’t mean I am not adventurous or spontaneous, because I am certainly both of those things. There is lots of room in my life for flexibility and changing plans. But I enjoy the planning also.

One of the things I have been most influenced by on this year of self-discovery, is coming to understand that I like things orderly in my life. I like to get up at the same time every day, even on the weekends, I meditate, make my bed, exercise, and then make coffee. Every day. If I don’t, I am kind of floundering all day long, and nothing seems to get accomplished. It is like I didn’t shut yesterday off and I am still in it. I have to have a way to start my day with a routine, no matter where in the world I am. It works for me. It is kind of like resetting my life to a new day. The mistakes of yesterday are past, today I am starting anew. I reset my compass and then embrace the new day.

I also have realized that, although I am not a neat freak, I like order in my environment. As I start owning more possessions again, it makes me anxious. I am looking forward to having a house of my own again, at the same time, I am terrified of having to purchase furniture and decorate it. Clutter makes me crazy. There is peace in order. There is peace in having a small amount of possessions so that I know what I have and where everything is when I am looking for it. At least that is true for me.

One of the major lessons I have learned this year is that I want my life to be about simplicity That goes for the amount of possessions I own as well as where I end up deciding to live. When I lived in a high rise condo, it made my life difficult for the things I love to do. Just getting my bikes out was a huge chore. They were either in the storage unit or in the middle of my living room on the 7th floor and we weren’t allowed to take them in the elevator. Thus every time I rode, which was every day, it was this ordeal. It took a huge commitment on my part. Same with skiing, kayaking, etc. I want my life to be simple. I want a garage where I can work on my own gear, a small townhouse where I don’t have to do yard work but with outdoor space where I can have a container garden. Someplace that is easy to access the roads l love to ride, the water I love to paddle, and the mountain I love to ski on. I haven’t found it yet, but I am closer.

This year I learned that I want to spend less time and resources of my life taking care of “stuff” and have more to devote to taking care of myself and the people I love. Every day I want to practice mindfulness, letting go of attachment, reducing suffering (my own and others) and increasing happiness. I want my life to be about kindness and compassion. For me, I can’t do any of those things from a cluttered environment filled with a bunch of unnecessary stuff, and that includes both physical things as well as intellectual and emotional ones.

So I have this cleared out life. I cleared out my physical possessions, challenged the places where I was emotionally stuck, and got a new job to challenge myself intellectually. Now, how do I put the pieces back together again in a way that is conducive to how I want to live the last 1/3 of my life? That is the question.

Lesson two: Sometimes a woman has to let her garden get out of control to see what sticks

Posted on July 3, 2014 by rangotti

Once, when I working on my yard and garden, I apologized for it being a little out of control with new plants springing up everywhere. I am used to gardens being orderly rows, not a chaos of wildflowers growing up everywhere. My friend Deb said “sometimes a woman has to let her garden get out of control to see what likes growing there, to see what sticks.”. And that is sabbatical lesson number two.

My friend Matt has never given me a tangible gift in the 7 years that we have been friends. He has paid for dinner a few times, he tried to pay for a paragliding lesson once but I paid him back, but he has never given me something that I can touch for a present. Simultaneously, he has given me the best gift I have ever received in my life.

For most of my life, I strove for perfection. I had goals and expectations for my behavior that were ridiculously high and I met them. There was no space for spontaneity, no time for emotion, no allowance being out of control. People would have described me as dependable, stalwart, and driven. Then my life got divided by zero and life as I knew it fell apart. Throughout the next year as I tried to Band-aid it back together with marriage therapy, I grew more spontaneous, but slowly, in a planned controlled way. I didn’t really understand truly letting go, to not be constrained by standards of polite society. And then, I met Matt.

One of the first times I ever allowed myself to loosen the grip on perfection around Matt was after a Sunday morning kayaking pool session. Matt wanted to go to brunch but I didn’t have any hair ties to contain my wild “Albert Einstein mad-scientist” hair. He said don’t worry about it, just come to brunch. Since it was a new friendship, I was torn between wanting to spend time with my friend but worried about him rejecting me or making fun of me. I decided to trust him and see where it all fell out. So we are sitting at a nice restaurant, outside in the sun, with all the other well-dressed Sunday brunch goers. I am dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and have wet hair. As my hair dried, it got crazier and crazier and I got more and more self-conscious until one moment Matt looks over and says, “you’re hair is so wild, it is awesome”. Gotta love that kid. Hundreds of times in our friendship, that same type of scenario played out. He watched and encouraged me to engage in some of the most outrageous behaviors. And I was always rewarded with his unconditional acceptance.

One way I am outrageous is with all my “woo-woo” theories that I am always coming up with. My friends just roll their eyes when I get started on a new one. For example: I believe in using all of my senses as I walk through life, one of which (often overlooked) is the sense of smell. My theory is that perfume and cologne can kill a relationship. When we get to know someone, one of the things we filter them is through their scent, for example I loved the way my ex smelled. I believe that the problem with perfume and cologne is that they mask our natural scent. But when you get to know someone and like how they smell with fragrance on, what happens when they aren’t wearing any? Will that change the way you feel in a subtle way?

The cologne is an example of something we use to mask who we really are. Whether with cologne or outrageous behavior, this is the lesson. I only want people in my life who want to be with the authentic me. I don’t want to have to keep putting on airs or living a farce to be included as someone’s friend. What I have learned is to be myself, to be wild, crazy, and unrestrained. Those who want to be in my life will gravitate toward me, whether I am “perfect” or perfectly crazy. They have to want the whole package. If they don’t, then I move them to the outer periphery. There are only be a few people in my life who can handle my “crazy” and my crazy gives them the freedom to let their vulnerability show in return. Those are the few people I want to find and keep. The rest need to be let go.

Your “crazy” is a filter, it filters out those who want to truly be part of your life from those who only superficially want to be there. We need both kinds of people, but we give our hearts to the people who accept us as we are, authentically in all our crazy glory. I believe there are many people who never allow anyone to be that close to them in their whole lives. They never can give up the control and worry over what society will think of them if they allow their true selves to show. They are too hung up on being criticized and rejected.

One of the great aspects of this lesson is that I have learned not to take rejection personally anymore. When a relationship ends, I can hear Matt’s voice say, “it just wasn’t the right fit, try again”. I realize that not everyone is going to gravitate toward me and that is okay. Let them go be free to find the people they can be authentic with. My self-esteem will still be intact.

The gift Matt gave me is in allowing me to see what life looks like when we do let someone in that close. Life changes when we live with that kind of authenticity and whole-heartedness. It is richer, fuller, just more vibrant in every way. I now have a small core group of friends who truly know me and who I can be absolutely outrageous around. I wouldn’t trade them for 1000 superficial friends. I trust my friends love me and care about me always.

So let your garden get out of control and see what sticks. The joy and beauty of your life will open up in ways you never imagined.

No regrets, just lessons learned…

Posted on June 21, 2014 by rangotti

Sabbatical is almost over. I packed up my office yesterday, part of the final transition to a new office and a new job. It was bittersweet as it brought back all the memories of the hope I had when I took my current job 7 years ago. I decided it was time to start reflecting on this year and the lessons I have learned. I have to say, it has been a great year and I am a different person then when I started. The year was the most challenging yet rewarding time I have ever experienced. I truly have no regrets when I look at where I am right now.

I have had a rough few years transitioning to being single, having an empty nest, paying off a huge debt, moving across the country, learning the culture of a new job and an urban environment, trying to learn how to live for the first time from a place of abundance and making my own choices for my life when I no longer have to care for children/husband/family. For all the times we all say we wish we had no responsibilities, it really isn’t as easy as it sounds. But that is what I had done, freed myself from obligations, and then was adrift trying to figure out how to live my life after a lifetime of taking care of other people. I struggled to learn how to take care of myself.

When I started on sabbatical, I felt like I was stuck in an endless loop of latent emotion in reaction to situations that I saw as personal and professional failures. No matter how hard I tried to move on within the framework of everyday life, reminders of those perceived failures kept cropping up seemingly everywhere I turned. Whether in a photograph, opening a chest and finding my wedding dress, common friends, going through old files, bumping into former students… it just seemed like I was being haunted by a life that was over, a life that had been divided by zero and was undefined.

Given all that, the questions of sabbatical became, how does one get over several traumas happening in a very short time period that shake the entire foundation of your life? How does one start over again from a life undefined? How do you figure out who you want to be and what kind of life you want to live? My friend Matt once said, “Robin, you have to rewrite your hard drive“, so sabbatical became a chance to just wipe it all clean, a whole system reboot. It is a chance that many people long for in their lives but few are privileged to have: a second life.

I got rid of my house, all my stuff that had any emotional attachment to my former life, one by one let go of dependencies I had for emotional support, and just learned to stand on my own. I have no regrets, but lots of lessons learned. Over the next few weeks, I hope to be able to share those lessons and a glimpse of the strong, confident, whole person I have become.

For today, on this beautiful day that is the beginning of summer, I have mountains to climb and bikes to ride so I will leave you with the words and the music that has become the theme song of my year.

Wake Me Up (Avicii)

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

They tell me I’m too young to understand
They say I’m caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don’t open up my eyes
Well that’s fine by me

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
Hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don’t have any plans

Wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life’s a game made for everyone
And love is the prize

The Garden

Posted on April 2, 2014 by rangotti

My grandfather was a fantastic gardener. He had the cleanest garden, there wasn’t a weed in it. He grew things in the rocky, dry soil of Maine with no landscape fabric, pesticides, modern fertilizer, motorized tillers, or any of the other modern gardening equipment we use today. Pappy gardened organically back when organic wasn’t a “thing”. He did it that way because he was really frugal. I still remember going over to his house with my Dad on a weekend afternoon. I would tell him I was hungry and he would reach down and pull a carrot out of the ground, wash it off under the faucet, and hand it to me. Those still are the best carrots I have ever tasted.

Since I am home, I decided to use some of my sabbatical time to plant a garden. I don’t hope to be as good at it as Pappy was, but I aim to learn. There is something mystical about planting things and watching them grow like magic out of the ground. I often wonder how disconnected from the earth we become when we only have the opportunity to buy food from boxes and Styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic from a grocery store. Everyone should have the opportunity to just stick their hands in the dirt and plant something and watch it grow.

The other day when skiing, a friend and I were talking a lot about my garden, about what I was going to plant and I told her about my grandfather. At lunch, she ran into an old friend who she had lost touch with. After they chatted for a few moments, my friend and I went back out skiing where she told me the story of what had happened to her friendship with this other person.

She said at one time, they had been best friends. When I asked what had happened between them, she shared a great analogy with me. She said it was like they had together planted a shared garden, in this case, the garden represented their friendship. They would meet at the garden, plant seeds, discuss soil, communicate what needed to be done, share responsibilities and divide up tasks. When one person was busy or having a tough time, the other picked up the slack in the garden of their relationship. They tended the garden of their friendship together every day through their communication which kept the weeds away and the ground fertile. My friend went through a challenging time with a divorce and lots of life changes and it was difficult to be around her at that time. After a while, her friend stopped coming to the garden as often. My friend continued to go there, continued to plant and nourish the relationship, but as time went on, she felt more and more devalued by her friend’s absence. My friend was hurt and finally, she started going to the garden less and less frequently until one day she just stopped. Not too long after that day, her friend came to the garden to find it empty, untended, and overgrown. She called my friend to find out what was up. My friend, although heartbroken, kept her resolve to honor her boundaries and not allow herself to be taken for granted. Her friend decided that the friendship wasn’t worth the effort. They hadn’t seen each other again until the other day when we were skiing.

I loved the analogy of the garden as a relationship. If you have ever gardened before then you know how hard it is. It takes planning, preparation, planting, daily effort, watering, weeding, fertilizing, pest maintenance and harvesting. Gardening isn’t for the faint of heart. But the rewards of the garden, the best tasting most incredible food you have ever eaten, is absolutely worth the effort. It is the same with relationships. It takes communication, effort, shared experiences, mutual value, respect, compassion, caring, and time. Relationships aren’t for the faint of heart either. The rewards however, are priceless. It is the difference between pulling the best tasting carrot from the ground or buying something processed from a box. Both will feed you, but only one nourishes your soul.

The right limit of (1 life)/x as x approaches 0 = infinity

Posted on February 28, 2014 by rangotti

Today was one of those spectacular spring days in the Pacific Northwest. The sky was this amazing shade of blue, the sun was out, it was relatively warm. It is one of those days that teases us that spring is just around the corner.

I love this time of year. It is the time of year that winter and spring war for dominion over the land so there are great swings in temperature and weather. The buds on trees are swelling with signs of the potential of new life. The deciduous trees are starting to leaf out and there are so many shades of green that it almost hurts your eyes. It is a season in which you can see the potential that the world holds, the promise of tomorrow. It makes my heart just sing.

On a day like today, I can’t stay in the house, I have to be outside. I also needed to exercise so instead of going to the gym, I ran to a nearby park that has a great jogging path around it. To get there, I had to go about a mile up a pretty busy street that has a really major hill on it. It is uphill there, downhill home. So I put my music on, went to the park, ran a few miles, enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, laughed at the unrestrained kids that wave back when I wave at them, just in absolute awe of the beauty of the distant mountains (both the Cascades and Olympics can be seen from the top of the hill) and then turned around to head home down the busy street.

On the way home, my music trifecta comes on: Good Riddance by Green Day, Learning to Fly by Tom Petty, and Wake Me Up by Avicii. They are songs that were made for moving. All of a sudden, with the sun on my face, birds singing, the glory of the big northwest evergreens all around, I just wanted to dance.

Now remember, I am walking down a really busy suburban road. When I lived on Capitol Hill in Seattle, the sight of a 50 year old crazy woman dancing down the street in her black capri leggings and a big purple University of Washington hoodie wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow, in fact, there probably would have been people dancing with me. However, where I live now everyone drives, no one is walking down the street let alone dancing. Hmm… didn’t change anything, when it is time to dance it is time to dance. So I danced. Guess what happened? No one noticed. I didn’t even get one glance. People were so focused and in a hurry to get wherever they were going that they failed to notice a crazy woman dancing down the side of the road. The less they looked, the more outrageous I got trying to get at least one person to honk at me and smile.

Social media seems to be filled with people who are sad and lonely, people longing for simpler lives with less stress, and to have the spirit and the joy of children again. Guess what? In order to have that, you actually have to be willing to do it. You can’t say that you want a simpler life and not be willing to find the joy in simpler things, things like sunshine, fresh air, dancing, and noticing the world around us. And you can’t be restrained by being worried about what other people are going to think.

Here is my advice. Take the handsome man or beautiful woman you are with or, if you are by yourself, take the handsome man/woman that you are and go for a walk. And while you are walking, just dance, arms in the air, unrestrained by what people think, heart and senses open to the world around you. You will feel fantastic. What is the worst that can happen? People might think you are crazy? Guess what, being crazy isn’t a crime. You might make someone smile? Yeah, that would be tragic. Of course, you might make it on YouTube like this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSy7h3TPB-M. If you do, I will be so jealous, I couldn’t even get one person to look at me.

Tonight, I am going to Drag Queen Bingo. I am going to wear a feather boa. The great part about that is I am riding the bus. Who wants to speculate about how many pictures make it to instagram tomorrow of the crazy old woman riding the bus in a feather boa? It is going to be a hoot.

Life is short, whereas, when divided by x is infinite as x approaches 0. Go ahead, divide by zero.

No regrets…just lessons learned

Posted on February 24, 2014 by rangotti

I was watching a TV show yesterday. For those who don’t know me personally, I haven’t had a TV in a couple of years so watching TV feels like a whole new activity for me. Anyway, it was a talk show and during the show, they had a twitter feed in the background. The host was talking about how every experience in our lives can teach us a lesson, so rather than look on those experiences as negative, look on them as lessons. A viewer tweeted a quote that went something like “instead of being a victim, be a student”. I really like that thought.

I have several friends who have gone through amazingly difficult struggles in their lives. Their lives were divided by zero many times. Abusive childhoods filled with alcoholic parents, marriages with abusive spouses, dealing with infidelity from someone who made sacred vows to honor and cherish, amputated limbs, quadriplegia from a car accident, death of a child, recovering alcoholics/addicts, cancer, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and so many more. Most of the people I admire the most have overcome tremendous obstacles, it is what refined their character. They used those struggles as opportunities to grow, they refused to become victims. They became students of life instead. I would say that most of them have the equivalent of a PhD in life lessons.

Then there are the people in life that are mired in what has happened to them, refusing to let it go. Now, I am not saying that all of us don’t go through that, heaven knows I have had my walk through the dark side of life where I just couldn’t seem to claw my way out of the pit of despair. It might take awhile, but the trick is to not stay there. And it doesn’t just happen that you come out of it magically on your own, you have to fight for it.

So how is it that some people can make hard choices, do the right thing, feel compassion and forgiveness for those who have wronged them, own up to their mistakes, problem-solve, and move forward while others just wallow, refusing to take responsibility for anything they have done and making the same mistakes over and over again?

I don’t have the answers to those questions only my own ideas. I believe it has something to do with what the person tweeted… people who can move on and build a better life out of the emotional ruins of trauma are people who are unwilling to stay the victim, instead can morph themselves into learners. They refuse to take life as it is, just because people believe they should stay down. They refuse to stick to the stereotypes that people force upon them. They are willing to muck around in the dark times of their lives as a chance to learn. Why would they do that? Because they don’t want to make the same mistakes, they want to do it better the next time. I once had someone say to me on an internet forum that “you’d think some of us would learn as we get older, but that isn’t the case”. Guess what? Age by itself isn’t a teacher. Age is only a teacher if you learn the lessons as you go along and do the hard work needed to overcome challenges.

I believe the people who can grow from adversity are people who are willing to reflect on their lives and who have the courage to say when they made a mistake and are willing to make amends. They aren’t afraid to put themselves out there, to be vulnerable, to risk, to be authentic, and to care.

I was just sitting here at the student union of the amazing university I get to teach at, reflecting on learning as I get ready to be immersed in an incredible professional development program, and I find I am in awe of where I am in my life. I started to say I was the luckiest human being on the planet, but it isn’t luck. I have learned, that is why I am here.

Soon I will begin my traveling adventures again. All the experiences I have had, the choices I have made, the people I have met and the obstacles I have overcome have brought me to this place. I have no regrets… just lessons learned.

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

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