Happy Decade (inventory and numbers)

I smoked my first joint on New Year's Eve 1999. I was 15, a child, and the world was ending anyway, so what did it matter? Remember that, Y2K? My friend's father shut down the electricity at midnight, and we screamed, thinking we were on the brink of something big, bad, and important, only to look out the window and realize the streetlights were working just fine, it was all a hoax.

The twin towers fell the Autumn of my senior year of high school. We all remember exactly where we were when we heard the news. I spent that semester getting kicked out of my economics class for insubordination and wandering the halls in my itchy skin, or driving around aimlessly in my car, sneaking off campus to smoke cigarrettes, every moment planning my escape. In high school, I had three different cars, 3 speeding tickets, hit a parked car twice, and accidently ran over one cat. I set off 6 fart bombs at a school assembly, my favorite music was Weezer, Sublime, and 311, and my favorite show was Six Feet Under.

In the 7 years since I moved out of my parent's house, I lived in 7 apartments on four continents, and coexisted with sixteen people, along with, at different times, rats, mice, chickens, roaches, dogs, and one infant. I shared a bathroom with 50 girls, and mastered the art of squatting to do my business over a hole. I learned one language, but can get by in about three others.

I voted in two presidential elections--too young to vote during Bush's first time around, I went out and got drunk after the second one, believing I might find the antidote to my feelings of powerlessness at the bottom of a pint. I felt proud to be an American for the first time the day Obama won the election, sitting in a bar in a Thai mountain town of 800, surrounded by 5-6 Americans, all of us so far from home, crying our eyes out, hugging and kissing like old friends.

The United States has been at war for my entire adulthood.


I lived in Spain when Katrina hit New Orleans, and felt shocked that a foreign nation seemed more concerned about the tragedy than my president. On New Years Day 2006, the Spanish government enacted a law banning smoking in bars and restaurants, and I was there to witness the collective majority basically laugh in the governments face and continue on as if nothing had changed. Imagine if Americans dared to stand up for themselves so boldly? I swam in the Mediterranean and ran with the bulls and slept on beaches and passed my evenings in caves listening to live gypsy flamenco. I learned the value of doing absolutely nothing.

When I first moved to this city, bus fare was $0.50/ride. Now it's $2 a pop and my monthly Muni pass costs more than an entire month's rent in Thailand. I shopped at Russian delis in the Richmond district, dodged the gutter punks on Haight, and witnessed 24th street slowly but surely begin to lose it's local color (excuse me, but do people actually need a bacon mocha cappuchino? And I don't understand the novelty with the mini-donuts and cupcake craze, have people actually never stepped into on of the myriad Latino bakeries that dot the Mission?). I was here when gay people were allowed to get married, only to have it taken away. I found yoga and started dancing again.

I remember, back in the day, keeping my cell phone, perpetually turned off, in the glove compartment of my car (I remember having a car). In the years since, cell phones have become so ubiquitous that California passed a law banning their use while driving, while I have become a master at artfully dodging any number of pedestrians so buried in their PDA's they wouldn't notice the Buddha standing before them. Because all the knowledge of the universe has been made available at our very fingertips it's impossible to have a dinner with friends without consulting this little machine ("What was that song? You know, the theme song from My So Called Life? I must have listened to it thousands of times..." "It's cool I'll just look it up."). My good memory isn't even that good anymore. This Christmas I finally got my first iPod. I feel like I just gave birth.

This was the decade of TMI. The paparazzi showed us photos of unsolicited hoo-hah, we became privy to the lurid details of the sexual escapades of half the Republican Party, and I learned that Tom Cruise's baby's bib costs more than my entire year's salary. Over the last 10 years, we became voyeurs, and it seemed Americans took an almost morbid pleasure witnessing the downfalls and downward spirals of dozens of vulnerable celebraties. The rising popularity of reality TV actually brought us further away from reality and instead into the epicenter of the dregs of American culture and society. We have been in perpetual war since the beginning of the new millenium; yet, we remain disconnected and oblivious to the horrors of war, and entire industries have risen up to provide information about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their growing brood.


I've been Friendstered and Myspaced and Spacebooked and Twittified, and I wonder, how the hell did I spend my time before? Was there a time when I was able to read something from start to finish without simultaneously writing an email, chatting with a friend in Argentina, checking my bank statement, and job hunting?


I sat with spiritual teachers and great beings and quacks, abbots and sages, and once had to fend off the advances of a sneaky Thai monk. I've given alms at dawn and received blessings at daybreak, climbed mountains to kneel in Buddhist temples, and prayed to Gods and Goddesses and trees and mountains and big sky. I accidently stole a dog from a monastery (long story).


I twisted my body into suchirandrasana, baddhokonasana, parivrtta padmotonasana and eka pada raja kapotasana. I stuck my leg behind my head once, and held handstand without a wall for 6 seconds.

I smoked thousands of cigarettes and had countless hangovers.

I dated musicians, artists, yogis, massage therapists, carpenters, waiters, bartenders, chefs, scientists, engineers, DJ's, one Sicilian, and two drummers, one of which was missing a full set of front teeth. I had one night stands and enough bad dates to last a lifetime. I've been in love twice, and had my heart broken once.


I was employed 13 times and went from being able to take my pick of jobs in 2007, to, just two years later, feeling grateful to land a gig doing the same thing I did to make easy spending cash back in high school. I witnessed my mother not be able to find work after 30+ years of steady employment and my father struggle to keep his business afloat at a time in his life when he should be starting to chill out. Every single person I know has been directly affected by the current state of the economy.

In ten years, I've gone from and angry, know-it-all teenager, to a sad and confused early 20 something, to a strong, responsible woman. My parents are still happy and together, and I still have 3/4 of my grandparents. The biggest lesson I've learned/am learning, is to not focus so intently on the goal, and to enjoy the ride more, that ultimately that's all that exists. The best piece of advice I received was to imagine where I see myself in my life, imagine how that looks, and to live every day as if I had already arrived.

As we enter the next decade, I hope we can learn from our experiences and take more responsibility for our collective actions and their effects on the world. I hope to build conscious community and to continue stretching out my body and the corners of my brain. May we all learn to start following our hearts instead of living always in our minds.