Posted by: Dylan Stafford | March 17, 2011

Still naked after all these days

“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.

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Posted by: Dylan Stafford | March 15, 2011

Goin’ to work naked

Monday, I went to work naked, or so it felt. I left my computer bag at home, on purpose, to do an experiment about whether or not there was actually anything inside it that I need. It’s Tuesday morning, I survived a whole day without that stupid bag, and here’s what I noticed.

I carry that computer bag, oh let’s be real, it’s a man purse. It’s a computer bag the way a GI Joe is an action figure, not a doll. It would be a computer bag if there was a computer in it, but my laptop never leaves the house.

Back and forth every day, I carry that silly bag filled with home stuff and some work stuff. My rationalization is that when I’m at work, I might need some home stuff, and later, when I’m at home I might need some of the work stuff. But the truth, I suspect, is neither. 

My suspicion is that I carry that computer bag to tell the world how busy I am and to keep people at a safe distant.

“There goes Dylan. My! What a hard-working white boy he is. Look at his short, serious haircut. And that computer bag! Why, you never see him without it.”

That’s all. That’s the illusion I imagine I perpetuate. But I’m outing myself. I’m not that busy. I’m not that important. I actually have time to talk to you.

I’m doing a year-long program called “Team, Management and Leadership Program”. It’s six hours a week, for a year. It’s all about changing from an “I” point of view to a “we” point of view. The class is hard for someone like me who wants to be a little “gold star teacher’s pet” all the time. How can I ask for help and create a team around me? How will “I” get any credit?

What I’m seeing is that I walk around with this deep, dinosaur fear that I’m about to get voted off the island at any point. It’s hamster-wheel futility because I can never run fast enough to outpace that fear. So, I keep these little costumes around to assuage myself and keep up a pretense of importance-the computer bag / man purse.

What I really want, if I could be anything, is to be present. To be one of those rare people you meet who are with you when you meet them, who are present.

There was a woman I went to high school with, Gina Hatfield. She was present. She had a grace about her. In the swirling hallways of high school, she could stop and be with other people. She was the first person I’ve ever seen with the gift of being present. I’ve met a few other people since then who seem to naturally have it. Me? I’m a schlep and I’m going to have to practice. Being present doesn’t come naturally for me, stuck in my mind all the time, hearing KFCK radio blaring and tuning me out from the people all around me.

Practice #1?  Day two of leaving the computer bag at home. Hands free. Going to work and through my day just a little bit less aloof. Taking one small gesture to say to life, “I’m here. So are you.”

Maybe today I’ll talk to someone and, just for a moment, be still and see them and hear them and connect.

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Posted in Acceptance, Appreciation, Daddy-time, Dylan's Diaries, Funny, Nakedness, Really?, Workin' | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Dylan Stafford | March 11, 2011

Tsunami waves

God, please be with the people affected by the tsunami.

My tsunami warning was a 4:16am call today on our home phone. My father was calling from Texas, letting us know that the terrible tsunami had happened in Japan, and making sure we were aware of it. My sleepy brain calculated, “50 foot waves. We live a mile from the ocean. We’re at 85 feet above sea level. Japan is a long way from here. The waves won’t hit Culver City. I can stay asleep.”

My wife didn’t calculate the same way. She got up. Watched the news. Called my father, twice. Called other friends and family before finally coming back to bed about 6:00am and falling back asleep.

I sat at a memorial service yesterday afternoon at 4pm, high in the hills above Malibu, overlooking the same ocean, the so-named-because-calm Pacific, that today is sending us waves all the way from Japan. The memorial was for a man, Jean, I know who was accidentally killed when he pulled over on the side of the 101 a week ago and got hit by a driver swerving who didn’t see him.

Jean was younger than my father, I thought as I sat and listened to the reflections given of his life, staring at the dates of his birth and death on the cover of the bulletin. I looked at the dash between the dates–his life–amazed as I always am that it takes way more ink to write two dates, our birth and death dates, than it does to make a dash. Amazed that a dash represents all the days of our life.

Attending a memorial didn’t fit in my little hamster-wheel plans. To leave work early, to drive the Pacific Coast Highway traffic to and from Malibu, to attend a memorial for a man I’d only ever had coffee with once. It was all an interruption to being “productive”. 

What the heck is a tsunami to all the affected people in Japan and the Pacific? It’s an interruption of gigantic proportions. 

My thoughts and prayers this morning are with the tsunami victims and the survivors dealing with the aftermath, and they are with Jean and his family. How can I make today, this day, these next 12 hours my masterpiece? How can I live today like a tribute? Cherish it like it matters and it’s the only day I have to be a husband, a father and a person worthy of a dash?

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