“Hello, my name is Dylan and I am a bag-a-holic. I’m on day three of not carrying a computer bag to work.”
“Hi Dylan. Welcome…”
I’ve been going to work naked, without my security-blanket computer bag, since Tuesday. I’m running this experiment because I have a suspicion that there isn’t much in the computer bag that I actually need, that rather, it is just a prop so people will think I’m important and busy and… useful, somehow.
My goal is to be the kind of person I want to be, someone who is “present” with other people. The experiment is to take away a barrier, in this case the shoulder bag, and see if it makes a difference.
Is it?
Yes.
Difference #1:
There’s been a big shot of energy in living this week. I got up at 5am yesterday and when I finally got home after 10pm, I still couldn’t go to sleep until after midnight. Is that sustainable? Don’t know yet.
Difference #2:
This experiment has me paying attention to the little “hellos” through the day. I work at a university and there are a lot of hallway “hellos” with people from other departments. Instead of just doing the automatic hello, like the Beatles “Good morning, Good morning”, I’m trying to practice being present. I’ve found myself saying a silly “Halo” or “Elloh” with either a German or an Irish accent, being silly and playing with it but also trying to not take people for granted.
Difference #3:
I wrote Tuesday about a woman from high school I knew, Gina Hatfield, and how she was one of the first people I ever met who was “present”. If you’re from Denison, Texas, my hometown, and you graduated in the 80s then you know Gina, she was the homecoming queen of 1987 and a great person. If you’re not from Denison, you don’t know that she was also an angel, because she had to go to heaven way too early.
She got sick at the end of high school, and she fought it but the sickness won. She passed away in October of 1987, the third month of our first year of college.
I didn’t go home from Texas A&M for her funeral. I was too busy. Definitely not present. Maybe too unbelieving that someone my age could actually die.
Our whole town attended the funeral services. That happens when someone too young passes away, when an angel gets called home early.
Gina was somebody special. She was going through life, experiencing life and people, not being in a goofy hurry the way I always was. At that age, I didn’t have any way to articulate it, I only knew she was special.
That was 1987. Today is 2011. That was Texas. Today, I’m in California.
Today, I go to UCLA, home of Coach John Wooden, the wizard of Westwood and a deep thinker on life and living life fully.
Coach said, “Make today your masterpiece.”
Just for today, I’m making today my masterpiece. Honoring Gina, all these years later.
Don’t know what it will look like, but my intention is to live today fully-naked, with no computer bag barrier-to slow down and be with the people I meet. I’m starting with writing this and being with you, in that funny way that blogging and our good old friend the internet makes possible.
Ciao for now. Happy St. Paddy’s Day.
Dylan Stafford 
Hmm it looks like your blog ate my first comment (it was super long)
so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I submitted and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
I too am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any tips for novice blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.
By: Phil on December 17, 2012
at 2:24 pm
I am so glad to hear someone else speak of Gina after all these years. I grew up with Gina from the first grade on. I graduated with she and Dylan. Our birthdays were a day apart. I still live in Denison, and Gina still lives in me. I go to visit her resting place quite often. Words can’t begin to describe the impact she had on so many people, from her childhood up to the day God called her home. She truly was an angel on earth. Thank you, Dylan, for remembering her. We all can only aspire to be even a little like her, and it will make us the better for it.
By: Suzanne Tripp Hawkins on June 1, 2012
at 4:41 pm