{"id":164,"date":"2005-01-16T17:47:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-16T17:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sbw.webfactional.com\/blog\/?p=164"},"modified":"2005-01-16T17:47:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-16T17:47:00","slug":"nada-zilch-zero-niente","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/2005\/01\/nada-zilch-zero-niente\/","title":{"rendered":"Nada, Zilch, Zero… Niente"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have had two full delicious days to do exactly nothing. It’s been wonderful. I’ve given myself the time to do whatever I wanted, even if it meant watching all three Indiana Jones movies back-to-back on network television. I spared myself the tsunami aid concert with Madonna singing “Imagine”- although I did call and donate to the Red Cross- and instead I watched bad TV, read, ate lots of broccoli, and slept in. But by the end of today I was ready to *do* something, so I worked on the music for a show I’m doing in a few weeks, and then sat down at my computer to do a whole lot of nothing. This included reading many of the stories I’ve written in the last year, and also revisiting the novel I started about a year and a half ago. I was a little frightened, opening that document, because I honestly couldn’t remember what it was about. In some late-night blog ramblings around that time, I spoke of writing about all that ailed my romantic life, and I was afraid that perhaps I really was going over to the dark side in that novel. Instead, though, I found a sweet, even funny story, about hope and friendship and love. I even wanted to keep reading when it ended quite abruptly at Chapter 6. Seems I got all my vitriol out on my blog. I’m glad I don’t do that anymore. But I was suprised at the story I’d begun, and found myself rooting for the heroine. The crazy thing is that I couldn’t remember writing most of it, couldn’t remember the creative process that put those words to paper. And maybe that’s why I could enjoy it- I didn’t remember it. I can’t pick up where I left off, so it will remain the beginning of a sweet story of hope.<\/p>\n

I also looked through all of the pictures my friends and I have taken over the last year- they are all on my computer- and they made me think of a journal entry that I wrote on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2003, when I was trying to decide between moving to Napa and joining the Peace Corps: “I fear to make a decision based on fear. Jordi and I were talking about the root of that fear, and it is not a fear of Africa, of lost conveniences, of heat, of exhaustion, of isolation, of pit toilets and bucket baths, of malaria, of AIDS. I don’t exactly fear any of that. What I fear is lost time. What will my life be when I get back in the spring of 2006? And why in god’s name am I asking such a stupid question as that? Why would I stall an adventure for fear of what I cannot know, namely my life on the other side? It doesn’t make sense. It would be a terrible way to live.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, do I give up my novel? Do I give up what might be a great choice for me, a great change waiting for me in Napa Valley? Well, two things. If I were to go to Napa instead of Africa, there remains the possibility of the exact same thing happening in spring of 2006. I cannot know that I will be any happier, any more actualized, that my life will be very different than it is today. I hope it is, I intend to make it so, but there are simply no guarantees that one choice or the other will make my life better. It could go either way.”<\/p>\n

it is not yet spring of 2006, but at least I can look back on that and know that my life IS very different than it was that October. I can see it in my home, in my job, and in the pictures of the last year. I do not necessarily think I made the “right” choice in coming to Napa over Peace Corps, but it has certainly been a “good” decision. I would have been a year into my service right now had I gone to Africa, and I do wonder almost every day what it would have been like. I still am committed to doing it someday. But for now, a wee photo montage of the life I live today.<\/p>\n

Every morning, this is what I see on my run:<\/p>\n

the not-so-impressive but still lovely Napa river
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<\/p>\n

the winter green among the dormant vines
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<\/p>\n

the mustard flowers just starting to bloom
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<\/p>\n

the beauty and wonder of the valley floor in Wintertime
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<\/p>\n

And finally, the best part of my day…
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\n
… my friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had two full delicious days to do exactly nothing. It’s been wonderful. I’ve given myself the time to do whatever I wanted, even if it meant watching all three Indiana Jones movies back-to-back on network television. I spared myself the tsunami aid concert with Madonna singing “Imagine”- although I did call and donate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}