Building a new perspective

I am happy to report that I have made it through one of the toughest months of the year (January, second only to December in its hideousness) relatively unscathed. I am optimistically excited about 2010. Things are going pretty well on many fronts: the kid, the job, and the husband are all great. Happily, I have finally discovered both figuratively and literally a piece of dirt upon which to build, and the prospect of each project is fascinating, terrifying, and challenging all at once.

While I have found a great architect for the literal aspect of constructing my future (Daniel Kaven, who is unlimited in creativity, good looks, and a very cool guy to boot), I have decided that I am the ideal architect for designing and building on the figurative side. After all, who else is going to sign up for that job? My foundation is a little cracked and my property could probably qualify for an EPA (Emotional Protection Agency) cleanup program. But hey – I’ve got a great view and lots of potential!

I know that given these two daunting tasks at hand, I may need to reevaluate my vision of the world around me. Because my dear friend Jeff is an underwater photographer, he has the ability to see things from an unusual perspective. In honor of Jeff’s beautiful work, in honor of his birthday today and in honor of his courage to dive deep to capture the beauty of things that lie beneath our immediate line of vision, I am examining my life today from the perspective of an ocean creature, because what would the purpose of living be if we weren’t constantly delving into the meaning of our existence while simultaneously pretending to be fish?

For a long time, I thought I had to be this guy:

This is what I call the Divorce Lawyer Who Shall Not Be Named Eel, also known as the fanged consensus-killer from hell. When I first started practicing law about 58 years ago, I thought my approach with the other side was best handled by being overly-aggressive, combative, rude and unwavering in my position. On many occasions this business philosophy worked, and on many it didn’t and I ended up looking like a jerk. But even when it did work, I didn’t feel good about myself.

That’s when I thought maybe I had to be this guy:

This is the Oh Shit Fish. He stays in his little home and peers about cautiously, hoping to not piss anybody off and generally just staying out of the way. He apologizes to his peers for merely existing, and always offers to work on the holidays. Basically, he’s a pussyfish. That approach to negotiation is certainly good for the other side, but not for your client, so I quickly abandoned the idea of taking that tactic.

As I wrestled with writing this blog entry, my efforts to identify with a sea-dweller were not working, and I realized why: I can’t really swim. That’s not entirely accurate. I can swim, per se, meaning I can make it from one end of the PGC pool to the other without drowning. I can do this in less than ten minutes and without getting my hair wet (!), but it’s a fairly small pool and I am always cognizant of the lifeguard’s presence. And she of mine, I should note.

But still, I am uniquely uncomfortable in water. My issue with swimming is based on three terrifying memories from earlier in life:

1. Falling off and under a dock when I was a little girl;
2. My father teaching me how to swim by pushing me off the edge of the pool at the Aero Club (actually, the most terrifying part of that memory is that we were actually members of the Aero Club); and
3. A rafting accident in college during which I think I came pretty close to drowning.

As a result, I have always been highly nervous around deep water or unusually large hot tubs.  My goal for the past few years has been to take swimming lessons and expand upon my dog-paddle repertoire, but somehow I never seem to find the time. I’m really busy, after all. The irony is that if I had a dollar for every time someone at the gym asked me because of my build if I was a swimmer, I would be a rich woman. Perhaps that is not truly irony, but it is interesting, because I don’t swim, you see?

My recent analysis of my discomfort around water led me to remember this gorgeous shot taken by Jeff of an animal that clearly isn’t a natural water baby, but that perseveres nonetheless:

I identify with this elephant (insert obvious insult here) because she is the parallel of a fish out of water. She’s an elephant in water, but look how graceful she is. That’s me, I’ve decided. I’m not going to try to be a fish anymore, but I am going to figure out how to maximize my life while dwelling in some worlds that are not always comfortable for me, such as the social scene at my gym, living in a neighborhood where I am one of three women who work for a living, and the bathing suit fitting room at Nordstrom.