Speaking of which...

BAM!!

Oh, so this is what zero inbox feels like...

(and in case you're wondering, no, I'm not cheating! Silence starts tonight...)

Into the Abyss

As I walked along the beach from my hotel room to breakfast, I thought about my friend who did Peace Corps in Mongolia.  He has crazy stories of his host family going hunting in the fall and burying the carcasses, creating their own natural outdoor freezer with the quick coming of winter.  When we did a micro-finance project in the Philippines together years later, conducting focus groups on the beach huddled under the palm shade, he asked incredulously, You mean I could've gone here for Peace Corps?!

I had a similar thought this morning, comparing this environment with the austere nature of my first silent meditation back in Hyderabad, and then thinking of myself shivering and wearing my North Face to sleep during my second silent retreat outside Delhi a few years later.  You mean I could've gone to paradise to meditate?!  

You would think I'd be relaxed as anything this morning, but that's the farthest from the truth.  The Buddhists call it "monkey mind" and this morning, it is particularly going ape sh*t.  I'm antsy and quick to annoyance and anger (turns out professional meditators aren't particularly organized).  But so I usually am before any kind of intense meditation.  It's either nervous energy and/or all of my neuroses coming up for the sole purpose of getting purged over the coming days.  

Today, my inner voice has been particularly snarky, seeing all the signs not only for Art of Living (the silent meditation I'll be doing with 500+ others), but also its cousin, Transcendental Meditation (TM) -- which I learned only last night has its basis in Hinduism and focuses on concentration (slightly different flavor from the meditation I'm used to like Vipassana, which has roots in Buddhism and focuses on mindfulness).  Whenever I'm with folks who don't meditate, I wax poetic about the benefits of meditation.  But when I'm with too many hard core meditators, my inner critic comes out to play.  And so it is this morning.  The whole hotel complex is like Happiness, Inc... Meditators of the world, unite!

My morning goal has been characteristically un-spiritual: get to inbox zero.  Kinda a bit random, since I really haven't cared about an empty inbox since I decided to focus on my larger goals of 2015.  Yet here I find myself in my three-star hotel room in Bali manically purging email (instead of, say, walking on the beach).

I suppose it's the physical manifestation for what I hope and expect will happen to my mind over the next five days: achieve some sort of gloriously emptiness (and I imagine I'll have more than enough time to walk the beach in silent once we begin).  When I did my first ten day silent meditation in Hyderabad, someone referred to Vipassana (the hard-core meditation I threw myself into) as a sort of mental lobotomy.  But instead of going under anesthesia, you are painfully, excruciatingly aware of every thought as it swirls through your brain and eventually leaves your head.

Sometimes these thoughts are life-changing, such as deciding I would stay in India after my ten month fellowship.  Some are deep yet seemingly out of nowhere, like realizing my intense fear of disappointing others whom I love and respect, which most strongly took the form of my ex-boyfriend's parents.  And some are just so dumb that it's embarrassing how much mind share they take: like the time I spent the majority of my day in silence contemplating the finer points of Twilight (I'm Team Edward in case you were wondering).

On my flight over from Seoul, I read 10% Happier by Dan Harris -- which, for his description of his own ten day silent meditation alone is worth the read.  Subtitled, "How I tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works -- a true story," it's the story of one unlikely man's journey into meditation.  Harris is the co-anchor of Nightline and basically had a nervous breakdown/panic attack on national television (which he talks about here), stemming from his cocaine and ecstasy habit, which in turn was a result of his "addiction" to reporting from dangerous war zones.  His journey into mindfulness and meditation (which he basically goes into kicking and screaming) is hilarious; he describes his inner monologue of watching his breath as: In. Out. I wonder if they'll have more of that fresh bread at dinner?  Damn, dude.  In. (before then describing his ten day silence retreat as the "longest, most exquisite high of my life.")

I've earmarked so many pages for reference that all I can say is if you're slightly intrigued, read it!  It cuts through a lot of the new age hippie mumbo jumbo and says it all in plain-speak.  For instance: "As best I could understand it, the Buddha's main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won't last."  He traces meditation to mainstream, such as Silicon Valley ("where meditation is now increasingly being viewed as a software upgrade for the brain"), corporations (Wired magazine has apparently referred to meditation as the "new caffeine") and even the Marine Corps (apparently some old-school meditation gurus are upset that meditation is being used to make capitalists richer and the army more effective at killing).

But that's the thing though.  The edges are dimmed.  On my flight back to Bali, I reflected how I've gone from seemingly one end of the universe (NYC) to another (Bali), with barely a 24 hour stop back home to Seoul.  Yet as I looked around to all the travelers carrying their yoga mats and gear, it occurred to me that sometimes these two worlds aren't so different after all.  The same people who sometimes see themselves as "more enlightened" than Wall Street ambitious types often still compete with one another, albeit in more "spiritual" ways.  Once we break our silence, my experience has been that a common intro is: "What's your name and how many of these have you done?"  It's like being back in NYC, with the ubiquitous, "What's your name and what do you do?" -- similarly casting you in some sort of mental social hierarchy in whatever it is that that society happens to most value.

People ask if it's hard to be silent for so long.  Truthfully, the silence is the easy part.  It's sitting alone with your thoughts for 18 hours a day that's brutal.

But without fail, every time I emerge from silence, there's always some insight into myself and into life that makes it all worth it.  And except for the first time, where I emerged still deer in headlights (as Tyler puts it), after every other silent meditation retreat, I emerge feeling like I've acquired some new super power: all of my senses are heightened (maybe that's what inspired all the Twilight thoughts?? -ha!) and anything I put my mind to becomes shockingly easy: whether it's running for an hour or cranking out work that I know would have taken days.

It's like a drug and part of the spiritual game is not allowing yourself to get hooked -- to practice what the yogis and the Buddhists call "non-attachment."

But I think this is probably enough talk and soliloquy for one day.  So here goes!!  The leap into what's been called the last frontier: exploring all that's within.  See you on the other side!

And so I write...

Woke up this morning feeling numb and blue.  Don't worry, everything is fine.  But in this journey of detoxing that I've been on since the New Year (detoxing from physical clutter, from mental clutter, from time clutter, from foods and thoughts that's don't serve me), I find myself feeling my feelings more.  And not knowing entirely what to do with them, I find myself writing.

And reading.  This morning, in one two-hour sitting, I read a book cover to cover.  I was riveted.  Called Chasing Daylight, it's ultimately about a 100-day project that makes my 100-day projects look like child's play.  It's a last memoir about the writer's 100 day "project" -- his deep intention -- to die well and on his own terms.  Still in his prime at 53 and the CEO of KPMG, the writer was told he had terminal cancer and three months to live.  While he set out to write a book about dying, his incredible story is ultimately one with lessons for living... well worth the read.

Of course, spending my morning reading a book that I hadn't even yet downloaded was not on my to do list.  But I got an email from my brother-in-law who had read the book yesterday, and I found myself drawn.  So instead of working, I found myself curled up with a cup of tea and reading instead.

Last week, in the midst of crazy grant proposal writing, I found myself doing something entirely uncharacteristic as well.  I stood up, stretched... and proceeded to take a luxurious hot bath.  In college, I used to take paper-writing breaks to take a shower (in the middle of the day or night -- whenever I happened to be writing), but this was much more for productivity than indulging in leisure.  Like many people, I tend to have creative and "a-ha!" thoughts in the shower, so this became an almost-ritual through my college years.  And sure enough, with hot water pouring around me (at my second or third shower of the day), I'd get an epiphany that would give me the creative jolt to tie the paper together in some meaningful, thoughtful way.  Yet last week's bath was not for that reason.  Hunched over my computer for hours working on a grant proposal, I could feel the stress rising in my body.  And while the old me yearned to hunker through until I finished, the new (or "emerging") me knew this was the perfect time for a break.

You see, I'm not behaving much like myself these days.  Eight years ago, I underlined a sentence in a book that I recently picked up again once I moved to Korea.  It reads: "You're either losing your mind -- or gaining your soul."  In the margins, I had scribbled, "Friends asking about a mid-life crisis" and in all-caps: BRILLIANT!

There's a famous episode of Seinfeld where George spends a day doing the exact opposite of everything he would have done normally.  And the gags start when this ends up making him terrifically successful in just about everything: he gets his dream job working with the NY Yankees, he asks girls out, he becomes confident and respected.

Sometimes this is what I feel like my experiments -- my own 100 day projects -- make me do.  Not that I think my "old" self was so bad.  It wasn't.  It isn't.  I'm incredibly proud of all that I've achieved.

But I started to get a nagging question: Does it have to feel this hard?  Is all the stress (and self-doubt) really necessary?

As it turns out, it's not.  Because right after that deliciously warm bath last week, I cranked out a pretty great proposal (if I do say so myself).  But I did it without wearing myself out, and with a lit candle, fun music, and a hot mug of tea beside me.  What I'm learning is that things don't have to be a trade-off (work vs fun).  It can be both.  And that more fun also can mean better (and more creative) work.

Alas, this new frame of mind is a journey and not a destination.  And sometimes it's easy for me to get derailed.  That's why I started a new photo project (those of you on Instagram already know this) called #365 pleasures.  Starting last Saturday on my birthday, I began posting a "pleasure" from each day... this could be a gorgeous avocado for breakfast or silk pajamas or walking barefoot in the park near our house (it's inspired from the amazing global project, #365grateful).  It's a daily reminder to step away -- to consciously and purposefully inject more joy, fun, celebration, and play into my life.

And I'm learning that by taking the time to do that, my world doesn't crash around me.  Maybe my inbox is fuller than usual, but maybe zero inbox is no longer the game I want to play.  There's a yearning within to play bigger -- and while I don't yet know that this means yet, I know how I'll get there.  Intense self-care (I'm still sleeping over 8 hours a night), simplying life, and yes -- a healthy dose of pleasure, play, and fun.

Anyone wanna go roller skating when I'm in NYC next week?

Let's celebrate and have a good time

I love birthdays.  They're such a fun reminder of all the goodness in life (though Tyler and I joke that his favorite day of the year is March 8th).

This past Saturday, I woke up "early" to watch the sun rise (lucky for me, the sun rises at 7am in Seoul!) and to admire all the birthday decorations around our apartment.

In Korea, when babies are born, they are already considered 1 year old (the time in the womb apparently counts... abortions are therefore unsurprisingly illegal in South Korea, though the country has one of the highest abortion rates in in the world).  Additionally, on January 1st, everyone in the country officially turns one year older. (My Korean friends get around this inter-continental age confusion by directly asking me what year I was born in).  So this past Saturday, my American age started catching up with my Korean age.

After a birthday toast of Lindemans framboise (my favorite beer because it tastes just like a delicious raspberry smoothie -- yes, really), Tyler and I headed north to Itaewon for my birthday brunch at my favorite brunch places, the Flying Pan.  On the way, it occurred to me that this weekend marked my six month anniversary in Seoul (though who's counting??).  So my birthday brunch with friends was as much a celebration for the day itself, as well as a celebration for the community we've started to develop during our time here.

You know it's a good day when the only items on the agenda are: brunch; green juice; massage; dinner.  It was the most relaxed (but full) birthday I've had in recent memory!  The massage at the W was one of the best massages I've had... well, ever.  It was a "Korean cup" massage... which hooked me with the "Korean" in the name (must be authentic even though it's at the W, right?) -- but the receptionist kept trying to talk me out of it: "It's a very hard massage.  You may have bruises tomorrow."

Needless to say, I reconsidered, but decided to go ahead anyway.  The whole experience was a bit surreal (the decor was space ship themed), but sooooo deliciously nice (and no bruises to speak of!).

Feeling like jello and floating on clouds, I headed southwest from the W on Walker Hill to meet Tyler at Apgujeong, the fancy part of town that reminds me of London's Knightsbridge or Madison Avenue in NYC.  We met at Chef Lim's Jung Sik, a "New Korean" restaurant, whose New York branch has two Michelin stars.  With Tyler's own good news from the day (more to come!), we splurged on a celebratory 8-course tasting menu with wine pairing.  My mouth is watering just thinking about the night... It's become easily my favorite restaurant in Seoul: amazing ambiance, great service, inventive cuisine.  Definite must try!

It's Korean tradition to eat seaweed soup, or miyeokguk, on your birthday.  This is because the mother-to-be is fed lots of seaweed soup prior to delivery (as it's been explained to me: "seaweed is slippery, so it's thought to help the baby come out more easily") and traditionally eats seaweed soup as the first meal post-delivery.  After doing a bit of research, it's actually more scientific than one would think!  The seaweed soup is made up of a type of seaweed called "miyeok" or brown laver.  Not only is this seaweed smooth, rubbery, and slimy -- but it is also rich in iron and iodine (important given all the blood loss during birth!)

After hearing it was my birthday, Jung Sik gave me an extra course during the meal.  In true "New Korean" style, it wasn't soup though -- they had created a type of pesto from the seaweed and served a dish that I can only call "Korean risotto."

It was an amazing meal and a wonderful night.  Looking up at some point between our three courses of dessert, we realized that we were among the last two tables still there.  Felt like a true date night!

Tummies full, we headed out and turned a corner to find a jazz club called "Once in a Blue Moon."  What a fun night to an amazing day.

True to form, we were in bed by 11:30pm though.  I am 36 now after all.

What the Economist didn't tell you about Korean last names

Those who know me know I have a bit of an obsessive personality.  What tends to especially spur me is the answer, "Nobody knows," to a random question.

Since coming back from Bali last week, my current fascination has been on Korean last names.  The same week I moved to Seoul last September, The Economist published an article called, "Why so many Koreans are called Kim."  Apparently about 50% of South Koreans have the last names of Kim, Park, and Lee.  The answer, it seems, largely stems from Korea's feudal history, where only royals and a few aristocrats had the privilege of last names.  Starting with the reign of Wang Geon and the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), the granting of last names became a sort of reward to faithful subjects and government officials (by the way, the modern (Anglicized) name of "Korea" stems from this "Goreyo" dynasty, with the Hangeul letter "ㄱ" representing both "k" and "g").  Last names then became all the rage, with successful merchants often buying one through the purchase of a genealogical book, which commoners began to forge as well.  The names "Lee" and "Kim" were used by royalty in ancient Korea, so these continued to be the "it" names for those taking on new last names.  The trend seems to only be increasing in modern day Korea; as foreign nationals from other Asian nations become Korean, they apparently are continuing to choose Kim, Lee, Park, and Choi as their new Korean last names.

All fascinating.  But Tyler blew my mind at some point in Bali when he asked: "Did you know that 'Lee' in Korean is spelled 이?" -- (I know, we have the most fascinating vacation conversations).  You see, 이 actually just spells "Ee" -- not Lee.  So since being back, between drunken conversations over sake, more serious conversations in Korean class, or Kakao chats with Korean-American friends in NYC, you can be sure I found ways to bring this topic into conversation (often not subtly so) over the last week.

Who knew that in piecing together the answer, I would learn so much about Korean history and culture through its language.

The name, Lee, goes back centuries and originates from China with this character (which is Romanized to "Li" for Chinese-Americans):

For centuries, Koreans had been using Chinese characters for their own alphabet.  In fact, the small pool of Korean last names stems from Chinese surnames, which were adopted by the Korean court in the 7th century based on noble-sounding Chinese last names.

The fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, King Sejong (also called Sejong the Great, who reigned from 1418-1450) made it his life goal to democratize literacy in Korea, thus spending the majority of his life creating the Hangeul alphabet (as well as enabling tremendous advancements in the areas of science, culture, art, and politics).  I know this because soon after arriving in Seoul, we celebrated "Hangeul Day" on October 9th, where we had the day off and just explored.  Rather than using one character for every word (as every learner of Mandarin painstakingly knows), the new Korean alphabet was an achievement of simplicity and intuitiveness.  Comprised of 24 consonant and vowel letters, the consonant letters show you where to place your tongue (for instance "ㄴ" tells you to place you tongue on the front top of your mouth, producing the "n" sound), while vowels show you what shape to make your lips.

Given this alphabet, one would expect "Lee" to be spelled "리", which it's not.  It's mind-bogglingly spelled "이" ("Ee").  Here's the fascinating thing though.  In North Korea, the name Lee is actually spelled 리.  So what's that about?!

As I learned, this stems back to 1933, during the time of Japanese occupation.  As a way to rebel against Japan, occupied Korea produced a Proclamation on Korean Grammar (incidentally one main reason Christianity is so strong in Korea was also as a way to rebel against Japan and its religions).

One of the rules in this Proclamation was that Korean words should not start with the letter "L".  Thus, all the 리's became 이's (for the sake of harmony -- a fundamental value in Korea -- Korean vowels can never stand by themselves; hence the placeholder consonant "0", which isn't actually pronounced when it's before a vowel).

After the North-South division in 1945 and the subsequent war, North Korea reversed this Proclamation, insisting that South Korea "polluted" the "pure" Korean language (and even still, North Koreans consider themselves the "pure" people and South Koreans "unpure" -- or so my South Korean friends tell me).

So that's why you'll see 리's in the North but not in the South.  Of course, immigration to the West predated all of this, with the precedent already set.  So this practice of romanizing to "Lee" continued outside of South Korea.

To complicate matters further, "ㄹ" is actually both "L" and "R", leading to last names like "Rhee" as well (thanks Rich Lee!)  My Korean teacher's name is Yuri, but when she was young, her mother spelled her official romanized name as "You Lee", making her passport read "Lee (last name is always first) You Lee".  She's still understandably upset about this.

In learning more about North Korean refugees (more to come on that, as I will apparently now be in a documentary about helping North Korean refugees in Seoul), I've learned that an important piece of integration is actually helping North Koreans learn "South Korean" language!  As The New York Times reported back in 2006: "After six decades of living separated across a tightly sealed border, South and North Koreans find themselves divided by what used to be a common language, so much so that a person from one side often gets bewildered, amused, and even mistakenly angered by what a person from the other side says."  For instance, while a North Korean thinks he's saying: "I'm fine, thanks" in response to "How are you?", the same expression said in the South means, "Mind your own business!"  My US-centric favorite: the same word, "miji" means "Made in the USA" in South Korea, but "American imperialist" in the North.

So there you have it.  All you likely wanted to know about Korean last names, or at least the nagging question of why Lee is spelled 이 in South Korea.  I hope you'll now be able to sleep better at night... I know I surely will.

21 Hours in Dubai

I think I've finally found a way to do business trips right, in a way that feels sustainable and doesn't leave me drained and needing another vacation once I get back home.  The answer is at once glaringly simple yet also counter-intuitive to basic productivity: build in the longest layovers possible.

I'm sure there are far more efficient ways of getting from Seoul to Lusaka than via Dubai.  But flying that route gave me a fairly decent night of sleep on the plane, followed by a four hour layover in Dubai.  It was the most relaxing and rejuvenating four hours I've spent in an airport: I splurged on a massage, which then gave me access to an incredible hot shower afterwards.  I took a morning flight to Lusaka feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

On the way back home to Seoul (home to Seoul, did you catch that?! -- it's really starting to feel that way), I outdid myself in terms of layovers.  Landed at 6am this past Friday and didn't leave until 3am on Saturday.  My "old" self would have tried to see everything in this 21 hours.  But my "new" relaxed self decided to just focus on one thing: food.  I would eat my way through Dubai and learn something about the city's history along the way.

Good thing I had a trusty guide.  My friend and former colleague, Arva, left consulting to return to Dubai and start a food tour company called Frying Pan Adventures (they're really amazing; check them out here).  While she was at the Drones for Good conference for another company she's helping run, she left me with an incredible treasure map: a foodie trail of Old Dubai (full article here).

I can't say the morning started on a good note.  This being a Friday and thus the holy day, the subway was closed until 1pm.  I went outside to get a cab, finding myself being ushered to the "ladies cab" section (only women drivers and passengers), with a driver extremely judgmental of my choice of destination ("Old Dubai?!  Why would you want to go there?  I can take you to the mall instead -- it's very nice.")  Some negotiation later, she reluctantly dropped me off in Old Dubai.

Now, for those of you who have been to Old Delhi or Charminar (the old part of Hyderabad), you have a sense of what I was expecting: narrow, curved alleys; the smell of spices wafting in the air... let's just say Old Dubai is not like this.  There are sidewalks with palm trees and old concrete buildings that seem more like from the 1970s (not 1870s).  But after re-adjusting my expectations, I realized this actually is a really interesting part of town, which exhibits "old" Dubai from the days before oil was discovered in 1966 and utterly transformed the landscape.  Looking around, the restaurants represent an old Spice Trail of sorts, with various ethnicities represented.  Arva writes: "A discerning visitor who is willing to trawl the streets of Old Dubai will find that this city plays a unique role in preserving and showcasing culinary traditions from across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indian subcontinent."

Since the foodie trail guide did not have actual addresses, it was a bit like going on a delicious scavenger hunt.  My heart skipped a beat when I found the small eatery I was most excited to try: a Lebanese breakfast place called "Breakfast to Breakfast" that serves Manakeesh (essentially a breakfast pizza from an open-faced oven).  I followed Arva's recommendations and ordered a Manakeesh with za'atar (which I learned is a fragrant herb mix of thyme, sesame seeds, a lemony spice called sumac, and other "secret" herbs that comprise the restaurant's secret blend) and labneh (a thick yogurt).

Feeling stuffed from breakfast #1, I wondered how I would continue on this breakfast tour of Old Dubai.  I got a reassuring text from Tyler saying: "Fight the good fight."  So with that, I continued.

The next stop was close to a mosque (which made me smile because this was the place I first tried to get my cab driver to drop me off at: "What do you mean, it's near a mosque?!  There are mosques on every street!")  It's a small Egyptian eatery called Soarikh, with a proudly all-Egyptian staff.  I go off-menu and again heed Arva's recommendation, ordering Alexandrian Foul Medames, a brown fava beans stew of sorts, with a history that can remarkably be traced back to Pharaonic Egypt.  It's not necessarily much to look at, but boy is it filling.  I took my time with this, sitting upstairs with traditional stringed music playing and people watching down on the street below.

Completely stuffed, I waddle outside.  I find myself noticing all the amazing restaurants of various ethnicities in the area, like this Iraqi restaurant with beautiful doors.

I consider taking a break from eating (as Tyler's former colleague would say when over-worked: "I'm just one man!")... but the next stop is breakfast dessert, so how can I stop now.  Thankfully, it involves a bit of walking, so I'm able to digest just a bit.

The directions are awesome: "Wander to the right and get lured into a neighborhood baklava store that has satiated many a sweet tooth since the 1980s: Al Samedi Sweets."  Walking inside is a bit like being transported to what I imagine dessert places in 1950s America were like: glass displays showing all sorts of culinary decadents.  I ogle at the dessert "pizza" and the "birds nest" of pistachio seeds, which I learn are called "Ashulbulbul", a salty-sweet Lebanese dessert.

I order a Kunafa in Ka'ak -- a Palestinian semolina and cheese pie drizzled with sugar syrup inside a sesame bun -- along with a Turkish coffee, and the proprietor asks me if I'm a friend of Arva's.

Lingering over my coffee, I finally get kicked out for what I assume is their lunch break.  I walk for a while, taking in all the palm trees and amazing weather.

Then I head to Part II of my self-guided food tour: New Dubai.

It's a bit hard to adequately describe Dubai Mall.  For one thing, it's the largest mall in the world, with over 1,200 retail stores.  As if that's not enough, it also has the largest fountain in the world (the Dancing Fountain, which apparently did a full-day tribute to Michael Jackson when he died, with the water doing the moonwalk), the largest book store, the largest indoor ice skating rink... the list goes on and on.  It feels a bit like Vegas, in that "not-real-life" sort-of way.

Here, I meet Asim, another Acumen Fellow who I had only "met" a couple weeks before over email (a bit like a modern day pen pal!)

I have the most amazing complement to my morning of gluttony: an avocado salad with a refreshing fresh mint lemonade and succulent sweet dates for dessert.

Feeling fueled up, we're now ready to brave the Dubai Mall.  It's all a bit overwhelming, but I'm not gonna lie: it made me super excited to see Eataly and Magnolia Bakery... felt like a bit of a walking dream, with all my New York favorites in one surreal giant mall.

I have Shake Shack for dinner (even better than I remember it) and then sleepily head over to the airport for my final leg home.  Thank you, Dubai.  My stomach leaves happy.

To everything...

I haven't been able to get the song out of my head for days: "To everything (turn, turn, turn); There is a season (turn, turn, turn); And a time to every purpose under heaven."  It was in a movie I saw on the plane to Zambia (and the part of the movie where the waterworks started... happens every time on a plane -- doesn't matter if it's The Notebook or 22 Jump Street, the flight attendant always has to hand me more tissues).  The song has been following me around ever since.

I remember having a conversation with my high school boyfriend, Michael, where he said something like: "You know, I often think I like a song just 'cause, but then only later when I reflect on the words, does it really hit me why I was drawn to it in the first place."

And so it's been with me and this song, whose lyrics are from the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon (and thus bears the distinction of the #1 charted song with the oldest lyrics, from the 3rd century BC).  Over the last few weeks, all anyone has been talking about is the weather: the tremendous blizzard that hit the east coast, the snow that's started to fall upon Seoul again... But as I'm realizing, the winter season isn't just on the outside.

Since coming back from the Philippines in early January, all I've wanted to do is burrow and nest, pointing our space heater at my feet (which I'm doing right now) and nursing a big cup of hot tea.  In fact, nesting and turning our apartment into a sanctuary has been our primary goal for January (more to come on this).

One blog I follow talks about this linkage between the outside weather and our internal state of mind, saying that winter is a time to "rest, meditate, reflect, and nurture the seeds of new plans you want to execute in the spring and summer."  The article continues: "If you tend to work against the winter season because you don't want it to interfere with your obligations -- if you stay up late, take on extra tasks for other people, and book all your time with projects and responsibilities -- you probably experience winter symptoms like colds and flu, intense cravings, weight gain, and seasonal depression.  These health problems arise because you body feels stressed and needs you to slow down."

And slow down I have.  I have taken my doctors' advice to heart and have focused on getting at least eight hours of sleep each night (an average of 8 hours 24 minutes since I started the sleep challenge 13 days ago), with the data to prove it (of course, getting this average up has included me sleeping 11 hours this past Saturday night to make up for jagged sleep on the plane and during my work trip).

But it hasn't been easy.  As we plan our upcoming Valentines / Lunar New Year trip to Bali, my new "self" is bumping up against my old.  Sunrise hike up a volcano?!  Wreck diving?!  YES!! -- oh but wait... can we still sleep a lot and meditate?

I gotta say, while I've been resisting this ("how can I be productive if I sleep so much?"), it's actually proving to be a real game changer.  My mornings have never been calmer, and even Tyler remarked yesterday how much more relaxed and happy I seem.

This new mindset is also how I found myself snuggling with cheetahs on my last day in Zambia last week:

Let me explain.  As soon as I landed in Lusaka, Zambia for a work trip, I started researching what to do with my extra day there.  All the sites I looked up and everyone I spoke to pointed at the same thing: Victoria Falls.  "It's one of the wonders of the world"; "Now's the perfect time to go"; "When else will you be this close?!"  My omnipresent FOMO ("fear of missing out") combined with my (somewhat-manic) sense of adventure found me madly looking up flights to Livingstone in my dark hotel room with slow internet.  Around $500 for a roundtrip flight on a tiny prop plane for a quick 24 hour hop to Livingstone in the midst of the rainy season... It's something I easily would have done ten years ago in my mid-20s.  I joked around to my colleagues that marriage has made me conservative, but really, the answer of whether to stay in Lusaka or fly to Livingstone became glaringly clear when I simply asked: "Which option would be more relaxing and rejuvenating?"

With that, I switched tactics entirely and instead began to research how to spend a relaxing day in or around Lusaka.  Turns out, Chaminuka Game Reserve, with its 10,000 acres and airy lodge seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  Between game drives (giraffes and warthogs and zebras, oh my!), bird watching on the lake, and feasting on avocados, I read an entire book just relaxing in the open air lodge (great book, by the way, called The Invention of Wings).  Here are some pics from my nine hours there:

Oh yea.  And cheetahs.  As it turned out, there happened to be a pair of cheetah cubs whose mom was killed by hunters.  Aged 18 months, they grew up being conditioned to humans... and as a result, were just like giant house cats who loved to be pet (and had the loudest purrs I've ever heard!)

What's more, I was the only tourist with these crazy cats all afternoon (along with three handlers-turned-photographers), so I reveled in petting them and watching them frolic.  Just like good dogs, they didn't seem to mind the leashes, and we went out for a magical afternoon walk along the grounds. (My favorite reaction from friends and family seeing this pic is from Tyler's second mom, Robin, who said: "I enjoy big dogs, but you... You've got big kitties and it appears you have them under control.  I guess I don't have to worry about that Bolender boy you married getting out of hand.")

All this magic because I chose the "relaxed" option of staying near Lusaka.  But that's the thing.  I'm learning through this crazy experiment that relaxing doesn't actually mean I do nothing interesting all day or that I'm unproductive.  In fact, I think I was the best facilitator I've been in a while during my work trip simply because I made a conscious effort to be relaxed and know (in Tyler's words), "this wasn't about me."  In being more relaxed, I was able to be more present and thus be a better facilitator, drawing out insights from the amazing group assembled.  In choosing the "relaxed" option of staying near Lusaka, I had a sublimely magical day, which came nearly effortlessly (just thinking about hiring a car and hoping the small plane landed in time for my flight to Dubai makes my heart beat faster with stress).

It's like the song: A time to rend and a time to sew... a time to be productive and a time to just chill.  Okay, maybe those aren't the words exactly.  Bob Dylan gave a speech at the Grammy's last week that's really worth a read (transcript here).  He talks about how he learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs: "For three or four years all I listened to were folk standards... If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me -- 'John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand...If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you'd have written, "How many roads must a man walk down?" too."

It made me remember an interview I read about Bono.  He talks about the music already being there, somewhere out there in the universe, with the songwriter pulling the verse out.  He says: "When you stumble on certain melodies, you think, 'that was already there... like "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day."'  It's like Michelangelo speaking about David: "The sculpture was already in the stone."

And what I'm learning is this: It's only by slowing down and taking time to do "nothing" that you can sing folk songs until they become "Blowin' in the Wind", or snatch that song from the air or see David in the marble. I now have a much more nuanced understanding of my doctor's advice to "do nothing for one hour every day."

I'm not saying I'm Michelangelo or anything like that (though it did feel wonderful to break out a coloring book and pencils and just sit on our couch, coloring birds this past weekend).  But it certainly is a new perspective that's the direct opposite of my old mantra to "go go go" and the one that permeates all the productivity hack websites I read (usually written by men), with life lessons like: "If you're not up early, you're sleeping too late".  Maybe.  And maybe I'll get back to that and join the 5am club one day.  But maybe now's my time to hibernate, rest, and rejuvenate.

After all, to everything, there is a season.