Being surprised...

Don't you love it when people surprise you?  I was feeling like shit the other day about being left out of my husband's exciting life, when I decided I was going to do something for myself to make my life exciting in a way only I would appreciate.  So, with a little nudge from the main character of Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, 9-year old Oskar Schell, who, after his father perished in 9/11, wrote letters to his heroes- including Stephen Hawking- asking to be their proteges, I took a little chance.  I wrote to one of my heroes.

When I sit and think of what I imagine as the perfect life, it is a life of constant learning.  In my blog, it is evident that I go through phases in my interests.  One month I might be focused on the Holocaust, the next could be 9/11, then it's the life of Helen Keller, then the paranormal, then decorating, the next could be true crime, inevitably space travel makes an appearance, and life as an experience is pretty much always in the background.  This is the Montessori approach to education.  A child is given free reign over his own learning, focusing in one chosen direction until it is fulfilled (for the moment), and then moving to another.  The student breaks each topic apart step by step.  No two students study the same thing.  And, they use the world as a resource, not just the internet or the measly book selection in the school library.  This is the work of Mary Roach.

Roach has penned four books about science.  Only she's not a scientist.  She's an eternal learner.  She puts her all into what she studies, and I really mean her all.  When writing Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, she actually had intercourse with her husband in front of researchers.  She holds nothing back.  I love this.  I don't usually claim heroes, but if I had to, she would be one of them.  So, I wrote her.  Just a short email telling her I wish we could share a Freaky Friday experience and swap lives, but that I'd settle for being her assistant.  And wouldn't you know, she wrote me back.  And not just wrote me back, I mean she actually responded to my comments and made jokes about them.  And, not only that, but she responded the very next day.  I have no words for this.  If I was looking for a little pick-me-up in my day, I certainly got it.

When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, we are all people.  We are all on the same level.  This is why the idea of heroes seems somehow wrong to me.  And, this email reminded me of that.  She wasn't too cool to respond to some lame-o wanna-be sitting on her couch crying because her life is not exciting.  So, in honor of the work of Mary Roach- and the fact that she is a completely genuine person- I want to begin compiling a list of some things I would like to explore:

1. What is the sound barrier?
2. What areas of the world remain yet to be "discovered"?
3. Are there any civilizations, present or past, who were able to survive without engaging in war?
4. How deep is the deepest ocean?
5. What are the phases of the moon and why do they occur?
6. How are waves formed?
7. How many languages are there that we know of?
8. Why are there hollow tree stumps in the marshes here?
9.  How do diving bells work?
10. What is the history of the Castillo de San Marcos?
11. How do you conjugate Spanish verbs?
12. What was it like to live in the 1950s?
13. How many countries are there?
14. Is there a way to keep serial killers from killing?
15. What is the deepest a person has gone underwater?
16. What did Josef Mengele do in his experiments?
17. How many wars has the US been involved in?
18. How many words are there in the English language?
19. What determines the types of clouds in the sky?
20. Once and for all, what is a black hole really?

Wow, this barely even nudges the surface.  I could keep this list going for as long as eternity.  To put it short and sweet, I will quote the movie, Harriet the Spy.  In one scene, Harriet and her friends visit an artist's garden where they find soda bottles hanging from the trees around them.  Golly, Harriet's nanny, pulls one down, shakes it up, and asks each of the kids to wish for what they want most in the world and then take a sip.  I, like Harriet, "want to see the whole world and I want to write down everything."

Happy Halloween!