Living in the Now. The Here. The This.

So, I’m trying to turn a new leaf here. New week, new attitude. New Zen.

Or something like that.

Recently, I’ve been reading a bit about the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton.

First of all, I had no idea what a Trappist Monk was, but according to Wikipedia (the search engine of my generation) they are an order of the Roman Catholic Church that began in Normandy, France. These Monks take on three vows: Obedience, Fidelity and Stability. They also believe in silence, but don’t take vows of silence. Apparently they only speak when necessary and do not like to partake in idle conversation (su-weet).

Anyways, Thomas Merton wrote a lot (what else do Monks do in all that silence?). He focused on the relationship with yourself, with God, with other people and with nature. He basically believed that if one of these was out of sync, all of them were.

And it’s probably true.

One of his main theories that I’ve fallen in love with is this idea of “NOW-HERE-THIS”

Now=Time
Here=This Place
This=Whatever you are doing at that very moment.

Merton believed that if you were able to achieve a consciousness of Now.Here.This. you’d be living your life to the fullest.

I think it is so easy to live life waiting for the next moment that we really do miss the Now. I’m always hoping for May to come, waiting for Christmas, counting down till whatever milestone I have in front of me.

This semester alone, I’ve spent every week waiting for the next. Planning travel so far down the line that I hardly know where I am at any given moment. Last Wednesday a colleague of mine asked me where I was on Monday and no joke, it took me a half hour to remember where I had been.

(And I highly doubt it was early onset of Alzheimer’s).

I rarely take the time to breath in the moment I am living. To fully take it in and realize that this specific time will never, ever be mine again.

We’re all trying to find our place in the world---looking for the next best thing, but I’ve got to remember to live in the present and cherish what I’ve been given.

One of my favorites, Susan Blackwell wrote: “You are where you are right now. You cannot change that. Whatever you did 10 minutes ago and what you will do in 10 years is not right now. You’re wasting precious time, as you will never get this second back. We have such a limited time on this earth, with whatever you are surrounded by: don’t worry this all away. The universe put you in this place for a reason. Make the best of this minute, this second, right here, doing whatever it is you’re doing. Please.”

How the movie "Twister" saved my life. (And other rainy day musings)

When it comes down to it, everything I know about tornadoes, I learned from "Twister." When I was a kid I loved that movie. I could probably recite most of Helen Hunt's lines. I totally thought I wanted to be a storm chaser when I grew up.

Of course, I was a West Coast kid and really had no idea what severe weather was like. Sure, we had a lot of rain. Snow storms every once in awhile.

But hide in your basement waiting out a tornado warning. No way. We didn't even have a basement or any other sort of storm safe space.

Regardless of my countless viewings of "Twister," I'll be honest, I have no idea what to really do in a tornado. My storm survival skills are probably just as on par as my cooking skills (note, I haven't used my oven in over a year).

However, Week 12 brought with it a whirlwind (pun intended) of fun (sarcasm at its finest) and storm-sanity.

My first ever real tornado emergency.

I get it. This is all normal for most of America (You people are crazy) however, for this mild weather baby, these shit storms are f*ing insane. And down right scary.

I was driving down the road, doing my thing, trying to make it to my meeting when the sky literally turned black, hail and rain hammered into my car and visibility was quickly declining.

Now I've seen enough horror movies to know this could quite possibly mean the Apocalypse or the second coming of a Demon child.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I kept driving.

I figured I would observe native Texans in their natural habitat and see how they responded to such conditions.

I quickly learned that there are 1 of 2 things that should be done. A) Exit the Freeway or B) Park under an overpass.

Completely freak out (which was my own coping method) was clearly not the correct choice. So I decided to follow suit.

By that time, all the overpasses were taken, so I ended up following a long line of cars to a random exit, and into a random mall parking structure. I still don't understand how that was safer, but they were all going there (maybe they were all visitors like me, who knows). Everyone just sort of waited it out.

Turns out, I ended up being just about a mile away from the Arlington tornado. Pretty darn crazy. Some of the footage of the Dallas area is intense. Flying semi trucks! All in all there were between 10-13 tornadoes that day alone.

As I was a tornado virgin, I did at least learn a few things. Such as:

1. If there is a mass exodus of vehicles off the road, chances are you should be following them. "Waiting it out" while still driving is not waiting it out. It's just plain stupid.

2. In the event of severe weather. Always. Always unplug your ipod and listen to the radio. Regardless of the fact that you can't stop singing along to Kelly Clarkson.

3. Very large hail is an indicator of a very bad storm. It is highly suggested that you do not try to videotape it with your phone.

4. Duck and cover is a transferable skill (useful in Earthquakes and apparently tornadoes).

5. One should try to be familiar with the Local Counties, as this is the main identification used in all the radio warnings. In the middle of a tornado is not the time to be google mapping your location.

6. If you find yourself in the midst of a tornado, it's okay to scream your head off. No one will judge.