Lovely Ruminations on Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day I taught a love-themed yoga class, which sparked the following sharing exercise....Ignoring the commercialization of this holiday, this V-day triggered some ruminations about my history with this certain four-letter word. A few years ago, I realized I had a fear of love. Not that I was afraid to fall in love, but that I was incapable of falling in love. This was one of those wrenching epiphanies that stops you like a swift punch in the gut. I'd never been in a long-term relationship, and it didn't look like Mr. Right, or even Mr. Okay for Now, was around the corner. As I reviewed by past relationships, I saw that I'd been closing myself off to love, keeping people, i.e. potential partners, at a comfortable distance, in reality and even in my fantasies. It was largely because of a fear of getting hurt, because I'd seen how "love" could twist into something quite unsatisfying, quite ugly. I'd witnessed this crappy kind of love in my friends' relationships, in my parents' relationship, so I consciously avoided situations that would make me vulnerable. What I didn't realize was that I was effectively building a thick wall, so thick that I seriously doubted I would be able to penetrate it when I was finally "ready" to fall in love. That devastating conclusion had me rolling on the ground, crying so hard that I couldn't breathe, crying tears of anger, frustration, fear, so much fear.

But having acknowledged this, I thought I'd caught it in time. I could start to undo my barriers, and perhaps become a loving person, unafraid to dive into the messiness of love because that was human and a chance to live a fuller life. So I vowed the first opp I got, I'd dive in. Months later I started to date a friend in school. I was so determined to make a go at love I went to the other extreme, and, drum roll, I ignored the signs that this person was not on the same page. Turns out we wanted different things, so it ended shortly after it began. What a burn, right? And, boy, did it hurt! I could have retreated back to my shell, embrace the "safety" of keeping walls up. And I really wanted to do that. But, thankfully, life has a way of giving you a reassuring nudge when you need it. I met my current partner a few months after the failed attempt, and he didn't allow me to retreat. Through him I started to see I could explore this thing called love more deeply and honestly, messiness and all.

In trying to learn from my relationship missteps, I still feel like I'm playing catch up. But I'm grateful to be able to explore with a willing, caring partner. We've all probably heard that each of our relationships--failed or otherwise--can make us wiser. Yes, that's true. But it can go one of two ways, like the choice I had years ago: retreat or push forward. The latter is more immediately challenging than the former. It leaves us more accountable; no matter the consequence, we are choosing to use our experiences to remain open to loving and remain open to being loved. And that is definitely worthy of some celebration. A chocolaty kiss seems a good way to start.

Reasons for cupcakes

As a kid, birthdays often mean desserts, presents, the power to control the world for a day. And even if it wasn’t your birthday, you might have been industrious enough to latch onto some other kid’s party to get a cupcake or two. In essence, birthdays are all about indulgence. For the most part, that attitude remains as you get older, though birthdays can take on a double edge as digits increase. Somewhere around my late 20s, birthdays started to feature cupcakes and cocktails accompanied by questions: Am I leading the life I want to live? Do I have any regrets? What do I want to tackle next?

I turned 29 last month. My boyfriend, Seth, surprised me with an overnight trip to Letchworth State Park, a place known as the Grand Canyon of the East that includes some of the largest waterfalls in New York and more than 14,000 acres of manicured land varying in elevation and in terrain (seriously, whoever is in charge of mowing the park must have OCD or psychopathic tendencies).

Before dinner, we enjoyed a sunset picnic of wine and trail nuts against the backdrop of a 75-foot waterfall. The Italian wine we’d saved for the day may have looked like urine, and it may have been necessary to gulp down a full glass before “enjoying” the rest, but it didn’t detract from the celebration (or interfere with my agility in the 3-inch heels I wore to scale the rocky slopes to the park’s restaurant later that night). The next morning we took a city girl-friendly hike to a bridge overlooking the waterfalls where we encountered a vulture and, on our way down, we nearly bumped into a crouched hiker with his pants around his ankles doing…well, you can guess. Let’s just say the vulture was much more hygienic.

Pooping hiker aside, the park was simply breathtaking and quite persuasive as a backdrop for the birthday questions. Since my 28th, I’ve relished cleaner air, more fresh foods, more wine, more fitness and, best of all, more time to take it all in. To get here, I’d left a full-time job I didn’t love to find a new career path. I’d moved out of a first-floor, three-bedroom apartment in noisy West Harlem to live with my boyfriend in a quieter single-bedroom apartment in wine country. And in spite of the potentially damaging effects of morning breath, grouchiness and bed head, Seth and I still seem to like each other.

Sounds so perfect, it just might make cynics puke, right? Before that happens, however, I must admit I still have unanswered questions, from the more broad—What’s next?—to the minor—Will I learn how to drive stick shift without wrecking a car or giving Seth a heart attack? Those can wait for the next birthday party, and in the meantime, I’ll have a cupcake or two.

The running detective

In the country, running gives you an excuse to be nosy. In the city, you don’t need an excuse. You can just meander along the streets and slyly peer into ground floor windows. If anyone catches you, just clasp your hands behind your back and start whistling a jaunty tune as you casually walk away. No one will be the wiser, right?

Well, in the country, you don’t really have that option. You can’t stroll along in a neighborhood, and most definitely not whistling a jaunty tune (they’ll call the cops on you for sure), unless you live there or people know you. What I’ve gathered is that people don’t really go on strolls in their neighborhoods, unless they go early in the morning (when I’m still drooling in bed) or at dusk (when I’m probably ass deep into the sofa.). Not unlike my hometown, these residential streets are empty of loiterers and the country rural roads only have the flora and fauna to keep one company. So it’s a bit hard to blend in and whistle your way up to someone’s first floor window.

When you’re running, people treat you differently. Perhaps in awe or in disgust, they give you permission to take your time to pass by their flower beds, wave at their children playing on the front lawn, perhaps pet their dog.

I went on a run a couple of evenings ago. I used to do it for enjoyment during college in Northern California and then in the city at Central Park, but when I moved to the Upper West Side for graduate school, my running time dwindled. So now it feels like a pain in the ass. But I figured I should give it a shot again since I have new terrain to cover with natural scenery and less street traffic, though I do have to contend with hulking semi-trucks, which make NYC buses look like toys. Anyway, I’ve noticed three major differences on my country runs.

The first, being that you can be as nosy as you want to be, as explained above. In my poking around, I’ve gotten a few ideas about additions to my imaginary mansion/cabin/home, but mostly I’ve made notes on decorating tips to avoid, including wild front yards with multiple lawn gnomes, rusty wheel-less cars or trailers that should be declared fire hazards.

The second, I counted MINI Coopers to pass the time when I ran south on Riverside Drive. It seemed to be the favorite car of the Upper West Side, so this made the time go by quickly. In my country runs, I count wildlife. This latest run I saw one deer, two cats and countless ravens and seagulls. Other days I’ve seen bunnies, woodchucks and cardinals. It’s a veritable zoo really.

The third, I no longer use my iPod. In the city, I had a running playlist of loud, pumping music to drown out the sounds of horns, shouts or pigeons. Here, I’ve discovered I don’t mind listening to crickets, birds and lawn mowers. It’s turned into another moving meditation. Plus I need to keep my ears sharp for the family dogs guarding the family property. Unlike the city, they’re not always on leashes and they’re not always pint-sized accessories for your purse. I breathe and cross my fingers. So far, so good.

One thing hasn’t changed, however. Running can still be a pain in the ass; the first 20 minutes are the worst, then it gets marginally better. And nothing beats my relief when the run is over, because I’ve got a whole 24 hours before I think about my next nosy escapade.

Taming the wild beast

Today I mowed the lawn. This wouldn’t be interesting except that that I’m nearing my third decade of life, and I’d never mowed a lawn until now. Not because I’d been too prissy. I’m pretty sure my parents were afraid I’d cut off my foot with the lawnmower—I wasn’t the most graceful kid. Now, nearly 20 years later, I’ve mowed the lawn for the first time. I’d like to say I feel energized and accomplished. But I’m tired, slightly cranky and I keep checking my hair for angry bugs and cobwebs. And, with two lovely sweat rings under my “girls,” my chest looked like Betty Boop closing her eyes.

This was Day Two of the mowing experiment. My boyfriend and I are house-/cat-sitting along Seneca Lake, and part of the “deal” was to mow a big, crooked, multi-part lawn. Since my boyfriend has enough manual labor at his family’s vineyards, I thought I’d help by taking over the mowing duties for the house (truthfully, this decision came after a little prodding from said boyfriend). I’d never handled a lawnmower before, but I’d watched my parents push the mower up and down our swimming-pool-sized backyard for years. How bad could it be?

Day One was with the riding mower. The mower had six speeds and a clutch. I nearly had a panic attack at the clutch scenario because of some recent experience with driving stick—I’m learning how to drive a manual car. So far I’ve had a rocky couple of weeks filled with cold sweats and multiple apologies followed by silent, violent cursing at the clutch. Needless to say, if I’d had to drive stick in addition to moving a sharp, spinning blade around a hilly lawn, we were in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, the clutch acted like a brake, and there was none of this nonsense of pedaling with two feet. I took the mower for a test drive to prove to my boyfriend and myself that I wouldn’t drive off the property, into the nearby gorge. My max speed was at three, which is about as fast as a motorized wheelchair can go, so there was no chance of that happening. I’d become one of the people that put-putted on their riding mowers at a glacial pace.

My boyfriend mentioned something about drawing a perimeter and mowing the lawn in a pattern; I nodded at this, but my mind was not sophisticated enough to start drawing perimeters or a mowing plan whatsoever. The tree trunks, exposed roots, vegetable garden, fallen apples from the apple tree and even the gorge that had seemed like wonderful accoutrement the day before now were dangerous obstacles I could destroy with a mower blade or worse, something could fly up through the spinning blades, do some crazy loop-d-loop and end up stake-like in my back. I have an active imagination.

In spite of my growing doubts and the apprehensive look that flashed across my boyfriend’s face as he drove away for work, I was left to my own devices. I jerkily crisscrossed my way from the backyard, under the apple tree, past the vegetable garden, by the front lawn flower beds and up the small hills on the side of the house. An hour and a half of gritting my teeth later, I was done. The lawn wasn’t of pristine crop circle quality, and in spaces too narrow for the riding mower, the grass rose up like a patchy buzz cut, but I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Then in my evening yoga practice facing the lawn, I locked onto a three- to four-foot long tuft of grass I’d missed. (Insert silent cursing here.)

So, back to today, the second day of mowing and my time with an old-fashioned push mower to get to the spots I hadn’t reached. It’ll be great exercise, my boyfriend told me and added something about it being calming. Whatever. I just hoped I wouldn’t prove my parent’s fear right about the mower chopping me up to bits.

I yanked the starter chord, but the machine wouldn’t start. I pulled again. Nothing. When my boyfriend demonstrated how to use the mower, it had turned on so easily. In spite of my nearly 20 tugs on the chord, all I could manage to rouse up were a few gassy coughs. Though I was pretty much convinced that the mower was sufficiently primed to explode, I gave it one more jerk, and it shook to life. I was afraid to turn it off at that point, so I tried to mow the patches in one go. In addition to pushing, there was a lot more yanking, animal-like grunting, ineffectual swatting at insects and praying that I wouldn’t disturb a hornet’s nest under the bushes. I discovered that you have to push with conviction or the mower and Mother Nature laughs at you rather maniacally. Even as I type this, I can still feel tingles in my arms and back from the thick vibration of the mower. But the tufts of grass are gone now, and the lawn will look pretty decent for the next rain. A half-hour after my attempt to tame nature, I saw two female deer chewing at the now mower-shredded apples under the apple tree. So not only did I conquer the lawn, but I fed Bambi’s mom and aunt to boot. Today’s match score for city girl vs. country: 1-0.

First, we begin with a taste

I’m not a pure-bred city girl. I grew up in South Texas, in a city I deemed small, but by more honest estimates was probably more like a town. I always had to describe it in relation to the nearest “big” city, which was really a medium-sized city and about two hours away by car. In South Texas, we had cotton fields, orange and grapefruit trees, sorghum, mesquite and miles of flat, cracked, patchy land. The temperature could travel from hot to freaking hot to freaking, boiling hot in the span of an afternoon, and you could count the days you had to wear a sweater during the year on two hands.

In spite of the agricultural scene, I did not grow up on a farm (Ah, the city girl label just might be redeemed!). I grew up in a suburb of this small city, a place where nature had to fit along paved sidewalks that bordered manicured lawns to cookie-cutter brick homes with central A/C. The still-embittered teenager in me must point out that most of my neighbors had backyard swimming pools to add to their natural environment. My family, on the other hand, had a large, swimming-pool-sized patch of grass with a handful of skinny trees to romp around. This being blazing hot South Texas and me being an embittered teenager, you can guess how much romping I did.

Not too surprisingly, any time outdoors was usually spent trying to get back inside where the A/C was pumping. Things like camping, hiking or enjoying Mother Nature were considered sick jokes when temperatures were in the triple digits. Pretty sheltered, right? Not unlike living in a city, where subways, buses and temperature-controlled buildings reign.

I landed in New York City in 2002 after college. There I sealed the city girl persona through years of shopping, cocktailing, Meatpacking Districting, gallery and museum hopping and rooftop BBQing (of course, cabbing or metroing most of the way). While I’d learned to take shallow breaths, thanks to those lovely city odors, I managed to enjoy some outdoor time with runs in Central Park, wine and cheese picnics in Bryant Park and weekend escapes by a pool in Westchester. Even so, I hadn’t been exactly roughing it.

Now I’m more than 200 miles north from New York City, in the lush Finger Lakes region. Before visiting upstate New York, I’d only heard about Ithaca and the resident Ivy League campus, Cornell. I’ve since learned that the Finger Lakes offer more than hippie love and convenient bridges for stressed college kids to jump from sans parachutes and bungee chords. Actually, it’s also known for scenic views, hiking trails, boating and a thriving local, organic culinary scene. The region was dubbed for the chain of long, skinny lakes that look like, you guessed it, fingers. And these lakes afford the area with exceptionally fertile land for more than 100 wineries and vineyards.

What brings a city girl here aside from the wine? A search for my life’s path—I was spinning my wheels trying to figure it out in exciting, but distracting NYC. And a sexy, sweet Finger Lakes boy who is well on his way to convincing this city girl that life can be very good in the country.

So I’ve hauled my cocktail dresses, leather handbags and thirty-odd high heels many miles north of the City to try the Country on for size. And I’ll be blogging about the more entertaining peaks and dips as I experience life at a slower, more organic pace. Already, in my first month, I went blueberry picking for the first time (We’ve been suckered, city folks, because there is nothing sweeter than freshly-picked berries). I spent four days at a music festival known for drawing fans of diverse music, spontaneous dancing and recreational drug use. Let’s just say that if I saw the same mud-stained bare feet, dyed dreadlocks and paint-streaked faces in NYC, I’d have walked to the other side of the street. But when you’re in the Finger Lakes, you just drink the sangria from your plastic mug and dance an impromptu Irish jig of sorts.

On the latter note, I’ve also been sampling the region’s wines. Considering the name of this blog, I intend to be quite thorough about this part of my journey. Quite thorough. And I hope my experiences will amuse city and country folk alike. Perhaps we might discover the two are not so different after all, eh? So let the wining begin!