SALAD

Boooo salad.

I'm not a rabbit. Leaves are not a meal. I don't care how many croutons and slices of grilled chicken are on it, or how drenched it is in salad dressing. All salad dressing is either too salty, too bitter, or too vinegary, and I don't need the judgy look when I pass up the salad bar.

I know what this makes me sound like. I live in Boulder. It's so taboo in such a health-crazed society to say that you don't like salad, like saying you like drinking liquified fat and popping sugar cubes. Stop making me feel like I can't hate salad! That's what drives me crazy. If you enjoy salad, please, go wild. But don't assume that just because you're eating a salad, that you're being healthy, or that hating salad means I'm not.

When did salad become a main dish, an entrée? The French, to whom this word belongs, eat their small salads after dinner. Besides, in order to make a salad a substantial meal, we pile them with croutons and ranch dressing--fatty carbohydrates which make your salad about as healthy as a slice of pizza.

It only shows what's so wrong with the American perspective on health, where so many people think that as long as a few sprigs of green are showing underneath a mound of toppings, it's healthy. Or even worse, like me, we pretend to like things because everyone has decided that if you don't like salad, you're a fat slob.

I have a theory that secretly, everybody actually hates salad. We eat it just to keep up appearances. Let's be honest, you look so nice and healthy with that salad on your plate. Go, you!

I will admit that every once in awhile, a salad with a few avocados and some balsamic can be a nice side dish. But there are also other ways to have a healthy, balanced meal that tastes good. No more guilt.

But by all means. Feel free to eat your lettuce and be sad.

The Cemetery

As a part of one of my classes last week, we walked to a cemetery on the Hill, and were given half an hour to walk in silence and think. Peter told us, "Reflect upon the epitaphs, and take some time to think about what you would want yours to say. Think about the way you want to be remembered, the impact you want to have on the world." It was a beautiful day, clear and sharp, but not too cold. Crunchy leaves gently suffocated the ground of the cemetery in a blanket of gold and red, and the thick old trees made the space within the black iron gates feel contained and separate from the rest of the city.

I was expecting to see headstones engraved with elegant, meaningful quotes, hoping to write them down and get some ideas for what I would have liked mine to say. There were two that I loved:

"He had a good run."

"It is hard to live without her. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." A 30-year-old mother of three.

But I was surprised, because the majority of the headstones I saw had nothing like this. There were no quotes or thoughtful summations of life accomplishments. Instead, I noticed  that most commonly, epitaphs consisted of the names. Most headstones had the name of the deceased person and the name of their spouse. They were the "husband of:" or "wife of:" somebody. In the end their lives were defined, not by words or quotes, but by the people they chose to love. After we have been dead for so long that nobody will ever know who we were, we will be known only for the person, and people, we decided to spend our lives with. I liked that.

It turns out that the only thing that really matters is people. The most important choice you get in life is a choice in who the people will be who define your life and shape the person you become.

I won't spend time trying to think of a poem or beautiful quote for my epitaph, rather, I'm going to try to fill my life with people whose names I would gladly have engraved forever next to mine. In a hundred years, when some young girl in a college class is walking through my cemetery, who do I want her to know I belonged to?

Remembering

I saw it all begin and end, thrown together in non-negotiable circumstances that forced them to be friends. Cautious and anxious until it wasn't, those friends,
who drove too fast at the Garden of the Gods, contemplating their angst at night in quiet,
who spent days on couches in cesspools, imagining impossible lives,
who studied for tests to tell them how much they were worth for the low price of $35,
who took too many pictures of nothing they will never forget, in sepia tones of self-assurance and hope,
who woke up at dawn to hold hands before the sun,
who learned secrets at a hungry 2 a.m., Free Pie Day in crusty booths,
who were forever and infinite in dark bright windowless car rides with music that burst in their chests and screams,
who said goodbye on street curbs,
who needed change but refused to want it,
who said they would never stop,
who cannot live it all again.

How I Met Your Mother

"You wrote down all of these things to say goodbye to, but so many of them are good things. Why not just say goodbye to the bad things? Say goodbye to all the times you felt lost, to all of the times it was a 'no' instead of a 'yes,' to all the scrapes and bruises, to all the heartache. Say goodbye to all of the things you really want to do for the last time. But don't go have the last Scotch with Barney--have the first Scotch toasting Barney's new life because that's a good thing, and the good things will always be here waiting for you." 

- Lily to Ted, Episode 4, Season 9

Season 9 of How I Met Your Mother so far has been amazing. Legendary, if you will. If you don't know what show this is, go look it up. The first 8 seasons are on Netflix. Season 9 is the final season, and so this is my tribute to the beautiful thing that is HIMYM.

How I Met Your Mother is one of the first TV shows I ever truly loved. My family didn't have cable, which meant no Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, which played all day long. My brother and I grew up with syndicated comedies, and our world came alive at 7 PM Mountain Time Zone, 6/7central. We devoured any show that came on during prime time on NBC, CBS, and ABC, and our schedules might as well have been the TV Guide, because our weeks were defined by which of our favorite shows was on that night (yes, after homework and extracurriculars, Mom). My brother and I curled up most evenings on our darkly flowered sofa--our favorite lamp lit low for ambiance--and together, we discovered something. Those who don't understand television will call it many things. But we called it magic.

It wasn't long before we understood the difference between a good TV show and everything else. It was How I Met Your Mother that made us picky; showing us what a good show could be--entrancing, hopeful, beautiful, meaningful, intelligent, and clever. Unfortunately, it also forced us to realize how easy it was to fall short of that rare standard. I will say this: a bad television show is just...so... bad. So we set our standards higher, looking for those shows that truly captured us, that made us want to jump inside the television set and live with the characters and their delightful shenanigans. In many ways we already knew exactly which shows those were.

How I Met Your Mother was our holy grail. It was unstoppably hilarious. We spent our Monday nights grinning whenever Barney said "bromigo" or "Brosef Stalin" while referencing the Bro Code, laughing at his trademark "legen...wait for it... dary!" I loved when they made fun of Robin for being Canadian (because really, what else can you do with Canadians), and Lily and Marshall were adorably nauseating. We appreciated them for that, and could not help but gasp in horror whenever they fought.

When Season 9 is over and gone, however, (and after I've sob-watched every episode all over again), it is Ted who I will remember most fondly. That's kind of the point, isn't it? He is the main character, after all, and the show is all about telling his kids, "how I met your mother." But I appreciate Ted for so many reasons other than that, and it is all credited to the incredible writing and directing of the show.

I will never be able to forget how my heart wrenched when Victoria got on the bus. Twice. When Stella left him with nothing but a note on their wedding day. When Robin, crying, told him that she would never love him like he loved her. It's these moments that flash in the background as Lily says the above quote in episode 4, when she urges him to say goodbye to "all of the times it was a 'no' instead of a 'yes.'"

It's what we all have to do at some point, but it's so glaringly obvious that we forget it every time.

When we choose to say goodbye, for some reason, we start by saying goodbye to the things we love and the things we'll miss the most. That just doesn't make sense. When we say goodbye, oftentimes we mistake it for forgetting, thinking that it means we must forget the happiness of the past in order to be happy in the future.

Sometimes goodbye is for good, it's true, and there are people we will never see again and places that won't ever be the same. But, a disproportionate amount of the time, we say goodbye to things when we don't have to, and we say goodbye to the good things. Instead, we have to know as Lily tells us, that "the good things will always be here waiting." We should take the opportunity instead to say goodbye to the heartache and the sadness and all of the bad. Those are the things that deserve goodbyes.

I love Ted most for saying, "If you're not scared, you're not taking a chance. If you're not taking a chance, then what the hell are you doing?"

Demonstrated by that quote, to me, HIMYM was ultimately about one thing; indomitable hope. I will never forget, that despite rejection after rejection and a life of unrequited love, Ted held on. Sometimes it was nothing but a threadbare glimpse of hope, but it was hope nonetheless. And now, after eight years, we know who the Mother is, (and boy does she have a lot to live up to) and that Ted will end up, not where he thought he would be, but where he will be happiest. It is a show that shows us not only how important it is to find love, but how important it is not to. We have to take chances and we have to fail, but if we're lucky enough, we get to say goodbye to those failures when finally we succeed.

I dread saying goodbye to HIMYM this year. It will be like the death of someone real, and the coping will be somewhat the same. I think people all over the world will feel the same way.

I already had to say goodbye to Monday nights of HIMYM. I had to say goodbye to nights of TV-bonding with my brother when I said goodbye to him this fall before leaving for college.

But it's not really goodbye. That couch is still there and so is he, and still will be, long after season 9 has ended.

My goodbyes will be saved, from now on, for the things I really, truly want to do for the last time.
All of the good stuff will always be here waiting.

Four Things

1. Be impeccable in your word.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

4. Do the best you can.

Not Those Timid Souls

Sometimes I wish all I ever had to do is watch Netflix. Perhaps one day.

My name is Bea and I love television and film. I love The Daily Show and Colbert, Sherlock, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Parks and Recreation, New Girl, and Breaking Bad. My favorite movies are too many to list, but I will post about them when it's relevant and when I watch great new ones. I mention these things because I really think that a person's preference (or dislike) of certain TV shows or movies says so much about them.

I'm not sure what else to say at the moment and there's so much pressure (eek), so here are two poems I've written instead. Which is funny, because I've always sort of hated poetry. It's a love-hate relationship. Here is my first actual poem, one that I like and that actually feels to me the way a poem should feel, and the other is an assignment we had to do for my creative writing class where we describe ourselves in unconventional ways with things and objects, in the style of Edward C. Corral. 

The first poem was inspired by a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, which ends:
"...Who at worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Not Those Timid Souls

She is covered in goodbyes.

Daring

Bared

She knows defeat

He looks like pity. He stares,

She is his laughter. She is:

At, with,

because of.

Eyes-squeezed

Clothed in winks,

The tattered remains of second chances.

Her hours drip with him.

That suitcase, yellow leather

Held him inside.

Skin on slippery muscle

Limbs raw from friction

In the supple leather of this shell

The suitcase stores him

Scrawled in red felt tip

Her hand is goodbye for now,

What she will say

He will believe. There is no

Space for this suitcase. Three

Years is so many

Hours that drip.

He wants like wanting. Not choice

Coarse sutures and

Twine

Hope rots

With trench foot years

They

are a crimson almost

Not those timid souls

A Self-Portrait

I'm long river and green.

      I'm filthy prospector gold

and campfire coals. I'm red

     and reading

hands grasped to an eagle and parrot

     in the banlieue. Salt pours, sticking to my

eyelash

     and gluing my teeth. I'm

a fisherman

     on a boulder in

underwater. I am a document

     half-silent

but louder than half

     an eaten typewriter

soft from repeated washings

     with bleach unpasteurized

milk on plaster and 

     splinters

rosy yogurt drips

     on my birkenstocks

creaking in bulges

     and eloquent growls

portraying babble

     comprehensible

I'm small country

     kitchen. Beached crab

and too much small.