The Kindness of Strangers

The smallest of notes for the simplest of gestures.

I have prided myself for the duration of my life on being as nice as I can as often as I can. In fact, I have more than once been accused of being too nice (now don’t get me wrong, i did offer to “clothesline a bitch” for a friend last week but thats another tale)

More to the point, I’ve only been in this spot 2 months so i’m still in the getting to know the people and the how to get from A to B without a map phase. Today, I walked into the gym and the girl at the desk loudly yelled, “Hey Margaux!! hows your Tuesday?!”

Now, i’ve been to this gym twice in 2 weeks.  I was so taken aback that someone knew my name that when I looked up visibly surprised, they all stared at me as if asking why i didn’t just answer the question…

So, thats what life brought to me today: this smallest of gestures just made my entire day. Don’t underestimate the power of simple kind gestures and make every effort to work them into you ever day. It means a lot to people.  So to the desk clerk at my gym, you may not know it but you brightened my entire day. For that small gesture, I am grateful.

We all could benefit from taking that gratefulness and carrying it with us so that we may pass it along.

and this deer because google thought I should see it and I think you should too)

 

With love,

GG

Gettin’ in with the mitten

Nothing helps you settle in like some local sports action… Although I didn’t mean to do them all in one weekend.  Here is the quick tour of Michigan’s finest sporting events!

From my 1st michigan Tailgate (Sorry Blue, Go Irish). Where I learned if you happen to get lost looking for your tailgate and ask a man for a bottle opener, you will also be offered the week’s mystery shot served in what else but…. a mitten.

To my first actual Michigan game: When its Akron, people stop caring so they just give you their tickets…. then the game comes down to literally the last 5 seconds on the 1 yd line. Whew!

And my first trip to Detroit to see the Tigers!

Where I also encountered this man: Dude was TEARING IT UP on a symbol and a paint bucket. He was phenomenal!!

I promise I’ll try to write more often.

Loves,
M

A lesson on Zen

STEP 1: THE CHALLENGE: Last weekend my law schools bests and I married off the first of our lady pack. After dancing the night away, drinking too much wine and, for the second time this season, finding myself in a small snafu with a canoe, I was presented with the challenge: state one good thing you like about Michigan everyday. (Everyday is pushing it… Reen). The lovely lady pack has been listening to me bitch. Usually, I am the one preaching about the bright side and finding the good in all situations.

STEP 2: ACCEPTED: So last night  after 4 long weeks, I FINALLY made it back to the mat testing out my first yoga studio. Ironically enough the class was focussed on expectations. More precisely, on managing your expectations and how they can affect the ability to be mindful.  As any good yogi knows, mindfulness is a cornerstone of the practice. It is the idea of being centered, more specifically of focussing your energy in the present; the only part in which you can actively change.

Expectations remove us from our current state and force us to live in another time; whether it be dwelling on something we cannot change to worrying about things yet to come. The purpose of her speech was to say that expectations for the future can serve to let you down and its better to approach things with a clear mind.

While I thought I had a clear mind and heart going into this journey; that I would approach taking on the mid-west like any adventure, new things to see and people to meet. Really, it has just been a series of expectations: What I expected my new non-school life would be like, where I thought I would living and with who, etc. etc. In a new light, I am going to now allow any expectation I have made to let me down.

So I am taking the challenge and looking to the positives.

NUMBER ONE:  The amount of things you can get for free when you are new. (yoga and & trial membership)

with love & renewed energy

GG

Gettin’ smitten with the Mitten

Let me open this with, until two weeks ago I had never been to the Midwest (other than that one weekend I spent in Chicago when I was 17).  I am a Buffalo, NY  native and my heart lies somewhere back East…

but spent the last three years in a sleepy mountain town in Vermont

which happened to be the actual town from opening scene of Gilmore Girls

While Buffalo might seem almost midwestern to some; it isn’t. I know it gets confusing as  Buffalo, was once described as, “not quite East Coast but not exactly the Mid-west.”* As a native, I have held onto that not quite East Coast bit because, pretty simply, I have no interest in being associated with the Midwest. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I don’t actually like the Midwest and I may or may not had to have consulted a map to officially locate Nebraska. (save your judgment, the middle of the country gets confusing). I have friends in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas whom I repeatedly have to ask which state touches which and how far apart things are… but my poor geography skills aside, it always seemed to me a big, flat, mystery.

Then, however…. two weeks ago, I moved to Michigan. After seven years of higher education, I managed to land a job in my dream field. The issue: location. After a couple of tears, some frantic phone calls and one impeccably well executed life check-list session with the a great friend, a good bartender and some serious drinks, accompanied by my looming student debt, I realized: I had to actually move to the midwest.

This is the story of that move.  The blog is a way to keep you all updated on what the adventure will bring out here.

Doing my best to get smitten….

*Thanks alot GQ list of worst dressed cities.

-M