Setting the bar reallllllly high.

I have decided to start a blog.  Not sure if only I will read it, or if others will find it helpful, informative, or entertaining.  Frankly, I've been wanting to write for a long time, so others' reactions to it are of little consequence to the goal now set.  Write regularly.  That means consistently.  You hear that Katie, not just when you're down or super excited about the prospect of being a writer.....consistently.  The most trying variable in the equation for success--or at least a very large hurdle to jump (because you don't ever land on the other side--that's the whole point!).  Since this was a last min decision (mainly because the blog REM Runner, which has spoken to me most this year, particularly since being diagnosed with narcolepsy this Spring, has a "blogathon" going on, and why not participate and use it as an excuse to do what I've feared doing for many many years--sharing my truth with other people*), I am going to keep it brief and explain the name I've chosen for the blog.

“There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.”   -- Steinbeck, East of Eden

I know I'm setting the bar unreasonably high, preceding anything I write by a Steinbeck quote in the Blog title, but I love his work so much.  He is an author who confronts honesty with compassion.  There are few more valuable gifts a writer can give his readers.  I am thankful for the tears he brought forth when I was riding the "L" in Chicago, desperately underemployed and feeling hopeless.   From the day I re-read Grapes of Wrath, chapter 14 on that train, I have been changed--in my view of myself, my surroundings, the difference between entitlements and benefits, and my responsibility to work to improve the world I live in, be it by a smile or volunteering.  Language is that powerful.  But it is not powerful in a vacuum.  The same book had little meaning to me as a comfortable high schooler who couldn't have cared less whether or not the turtle made it across the road.  Now, merely thinking of it inspires me to expect more from myself.  To always expect more of myself.  Because I truly believe, based on what I have seen during my brief time in this corporeal form on Earth, that there is always more growth that can be cultivated.  And with each new stretch, I see myself and the world around me from a perspective that allows for gratitude and joy, even amongst the ugliness and pain that can act as a siren, deflecting  my attention from the many, many blessings that I have. 

 I'm not the first to have been inspired by Steinbeck, obviously, but I do hope to join the company of those who take his inspiration and work to draw out compassion and beauty out of "truth" (as best as we can use such a word to describe the human experience) in a world where we are all so similar.   Similar in that we all have control over our potential gifts and shortcomings.  We may (or thou mayest for the other Steinbeck fans reading this) all decide who we are, whether we are happy, and whom we help (hopefully we are included on our own list, but not exclusively).  It takes faith to allow for the dreadful beauty of things to show, but it negates the need for perfection.  And, that, that is the most liberating loss I have ever suffered.  

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."  -- Steinbeck, East of Eden

* Not the glossed over truth of FB, email, stop and chats, or IM.  Although I've always been really bad at sanding the edges even there, so this could be a really bad idea ;-).


Springsteen and Morello take their inspiration.....

Men walkin' 'long the railroad tracks 

Goin' someplace there's no goin' back 

Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the ridge 

Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge 

Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner 

Welcome to the new world order 

Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest 

No home no job no peace no rest 

The highway is alive tonight 

But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes 

I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light 

Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad 

He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag 

Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag 

Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last 

In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass 

Got a one-way ticket to the promised land 

You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand 

Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock 

Bathin' in the city aqueduct 

The highway is alive tonight 

Where it's headed everybody knows 

I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light 

Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad 

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy 

Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries 

Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air 

Look for me Mom I'll be there 

Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand 

Or decent job or a helpin' hand 

Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free 

Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me." 

Well the highway is alive tonight 

But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes 

I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light 

With the ghost of old Tom Joad