My Shoe Calendar on Friday the 13th

I figured I’d squeeze in this post before the end of the first Friday the 13th of 2012 (the first of three such days this year separated by 13 weeks). Perhaps it’s my empathetic spirit, but 13 is actually my favorite number. It is partly because it has such a bad rep that I thought to make it a favorite number a long time ago. But while this is how it started, adopting 13 as a favorite number has grown to shade my perspective beyond this numeric empathy.

If I look back on my day today and my Friday the 13ths in the past, the good and bad of that history is probably mixed. Today in particular, I had a few bad things – woke up late, troublesome clients to contend with, worked even later when I got home – but there were also plenty of good things to appreciate of the day. I have great and supportive co-workers who made the day enjoyable, connected with a few friends about things going on in their lives, and one of my co-workers even helped me get a lovely (but large) floral arrangement I received the other day home.

My take on the number 13 is that while I believe superstition isn’t unwarranted, I also think it’s healthier to adopt an attitude that recognizes that bad (and not-so-great) things happen…they happen all the time. And fully recognizing that, fully embracing it, allows you to appreciate and look out equally (if not more so) for the good.

One of my New Year’s resolutions (#7 actually!) states:

Live every day focused on balance and maintain an outlook toward beauty even when things aren’t quite beautiful.

I think embracing the good and bad of 13 helps me do that. Now – the number 4 on the other hand – don’t EVEN get me started…!

-cct

I bought these earrings myself.  $25.  Church silent auction.  They’re butterflies – something anyone who keeps up-to-date with on this blog realizes is a favorite symbol of mine.

But despite the lack of cost (and let’s face it, almost lack of diamond), there’s something about being able to tell myself that I bought my first diamond earrings all by myself.  There’s something in that message that I’ve always found empowering.

I find many jewels beautiful, but the diamond has this reputation that’s hard to shake as being a gemstone of worth in society.  My earrings are certainly not like the baubles on the fingers of celebrities that roam this town.  And that’s fine.  I grasp not at the diamond as this visual object since obviously most people would likely not see them in my earrings without squinting (maybe), but rather how much this fraction of something could hold more worth than even the largest diamond.

Don’t get me wrong.  If someone wanted to give me the Cullinan diamond I wouldn’t necessarily say no, but my desire for that would be monetary.  I don’t love these earrings because they’re $25.  I love them because they remind me that no matter where I am in life and the future, achievements don’t have to be grand; they don’t even have to glimmer like diamonds in the sun to be worth more than even the largest diamond in the world.

Ultimately you define for your own self what it means to be successful and happy.  If it’s about getting the largest diamond in the world (or heck – the universe!), by all means go ahead, but remember the steps that took you there and enjoy every minute of the journey as if they were tiny diamonds you bought all by yourself.

-cct

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

– Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

I received the news of Steve Jobs’ passing while in my online class session – in front of the only Mac in my predominantly Windows-OS office, in front of my iPad that had my reading materials, in front of my iPhone where I kept watch of my work emails.  I never met the man personally, but in that moment I was very cognizant that this human being who had just passed away was very connected to how I live my life as another human being in this world. 

The quote above from Steve Jobs talks about making connections and trusting in something within yourself, but I think there’s something to be said about a man who was not only an innovative and creative thinker, but one who believed in something enough to make things happen for himself and others.  There are so few people in the world that can conceive of “dots” that do not yet exist for themselves – the kind of perspective to drive the framework of their own life – let alone that that framework could be something that involves the lives of so many others.

And if Steve Jobs’ life and legacy is a reflection of the power of perseverance, of thinking outside of the box, and belief in oneself – how much greater the world might be if we all began to do the same.

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs.  Thanks for thinking differently.

-cct

A testament to my love of story and the valuable treasure of the local library, I would spend weekends pouring over books as classical music played on the radio.  In these pre-Google and Shazam days, I wouldn’t really know what I was listening to unless it was from this one CD I owned called something like “Classical Greats Volume 1.”  Most of the time, it was the local classical music station and, to the untrained ear of a ten-year-old, the instruments sort of ran together in some related instrumental diversity. 

Seated in this memory is a belief in wealth without understanding dollar signs.  Seated in this memory is feeling like a part of time known before and again: the leap  into some imaginary world, the details of heroes and heroines real and made, and meanwhile music played. 

I grew up in a family without money and remembering moments like this reinforce my belief that I was very rich.  My upbringing is a structure of love and appreciation for books, for art, for a family that made this a part of their lives because there was access to it – and that access is wealth. 

So fast forward: working on my doctorate and homework at a coffee shop.  I’m reading from electronic devices I never conceived possible or that I would own – the tiny structure of the netbook, the touchscreen of the iPad, far removed from that 1GB Hard Drive, 62 MB RAM ginormous desktop that persisted on into high school days.  I’m listening to a classical music genre station on Pandora.

So in this fast forward, I rewind back.  I wouldn’t be here without those hot summer days in that non-insulated San Gabriel Valley house, the stacks of books, the classical music stations on radio frequencies that have changed names more times than I remember. 

I wouldn’t be here, writing this.

-cct

In the end, I think I realized that being a vegetarian for 30 days (give or take) was not bad at all, but actually pretty great.

• I felt better.
• I cooked more.
• I thought about what I ate.
• I explored LA from a different angle.

I think those statements are helped by being in Los Angeles, a place where a number of restaurants provide you with vegetarian alternatives and plenty of places where it’s also their specialty.

Most of all, I have also accumulated a ton of photographic evidence that a vegetarian diet can be a beautiful and delicious experience!  See slideshow below or click here for my Flickr set.

For any interested parties (who don’t follow me on Twitter), my first non-veggie meal after this adventure was a rib eye steak from Morton’s (I had to keep up with the superb level of my vegetarian diet).

But seriously, I kind of like this veggie diet, so I think I’ll keep it (for the most part).

-cct

Pictured: Beet Salad.  The Farm of Beverly Hills – Downtown LA.