Simply Me: Lovely Luna

Today is my friend Luna's birthday. Happy Birthday Luna! Although we have known each other for many years, this year of trying to get back to living more simply & becoming more of who I really am brought us back together. I gave her the nickname Luna because whenever I am watching the moon, knowing what phase it is in, staying up to see it full...I know that somewhere Luna is doing the same. So thinking of the moon always makes me think of her, thus Luna. The other reason is because she reminds me a lot of a Luna from Harry Potter literature, both in looks & personality. She has the same kind spirit & sense of wonder and always sees the good in everything. She is a magnificent photographer & takes the most beautiful pictures of wildflowers & Nature. Luna is also my hiking & river buddy. She will sit for hours out on a rock in the middle of the river with me & just talk. She is my friend that doesn't want to go shopping or out for lunch or to the mall. She would rather help me load the muddy kayaks onto the truck, walk thru goose shit and float around on the river all day. Her idea of a gourmet meal is cheese and crackers or peanut butter & jelly. When she disappears, she has most likely taken her tent & set it up by the river to be alone, or out in the backyard with a campfire going. She is very brave and terribly adventurous. I follow her around watching out for snakes & murderers, but she just sails along happily thru life always expecting the best. One Monday morning while we were running recklessly across an old rock wall that drops off 30 ft. into the rocky river rapids below it occured to me that most women our age were at that moment sitting safely in a church basement or someone's lovely home having Bible study & refreshments. Not my friend! Geesh. She scares the hell out of me & her poor mother. She loves to travel and just got back from going across the country on the back of a motorcycle. She has 3 grandchildren, another on the way & daily cares for her husband's elderly father who lives with them. She took him in to rescue him from a nursing home. She loves the Lord, goes to church and volunteers for Nursery. She managed to put herself through college as a single mother with four children. I don't know how someone who works so hard and is so unselfish can still be such a free spirit, but she is. She doesn't care about material possessions, nice cars, jewelry, makeup or fancy clothes. She could be a model with her looks, but she mostly wears old tshirts, much to her teenage daughter's dismay. :) She stopped dyeing her hair & now has long silver locks. We love the same music, neither one of us can go more than a few hours without campfire smoke or seeing the river or watching the moon. We both want to live in Alaska one day or in the middle of nowhere, Northern Exposure is our favorite show. I love how she yells at the TV screen when a movie character does something mean. My favorite part about being friends with this beautiful woman is the almost freaky spiritual connection we share. We are always on the same page even without any contact. She says we could communicate just with smoke signals and still know exactly what the other was thinking. For instance, last week a lone solitary seagull started hanging out down by the river bridge. I couldn't find any information about a storm on the coast, so he had no "reason" to be there, he just was. I watched him and thought about him for 2 or 3 days, forgetting to ever mention him to Luna. Without knowing anything about it, she suddenly out of the blue hands me a book she wants me to read....about a lone seagull! We do that stuff all the time. Used to really freak us out, but we are kind of getting used to it by now. :) So, I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my soul mate. Thank you for all your behind the scenes work in getting my kayak for me. I only this week discovered that Luna was the driving force behind Gaston that made my kayak happen for me, which has turned out to have become my most prized and valued possession. Nothing has ever brought me more happiness or been more instrumental in helping me "find myself" and get back to who I am. So, thanks for knowing me better than I knew myself, Lovely Luna, and I hope your birthday is as lovely as you are. :)

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2003

DO YOU KNOW someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly. Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

I know. My name is Jonathan, and I am an introvert.

Oh, for years I denied it. After all, I have good social skills. I am not morose or misanthropic. Usually. I am far from shy. I love long conversations that explore intimate thoughts or passionate interests. But at last I have self-identified and come out to my friends and colleagues. In doing so, I have found myself liberated from any number of damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. Now I am here to tell you what you need to know in order to respond sensitively and supportively to your own introverted family members, friends, and colleagues. Remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts. It pays to learn the warning signs.

What is introversion? In its modern sense, the concept goes back to the 1920s and the psychologist Carl Jung. Today it is a mainstay of personality tests, including the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

How many people are introverts? I performed exhaustive research on this question, in the form of a quick Google search. The answer: About 25 percent. Or: Just under half. Or—my favorite—"a minority in the regular population but a majority in the gifted population."

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in life. "It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert," write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

Are introverts oppressed? I would have to say so. For one thing, extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in politics—Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon—is merely to drive home the point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted streak (many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors), introverts are not considered "naturals" in politics.

Extroverts therefore dominate public life. This is a pity. If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. As Coolidge is supposed to have said, "Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?" (He is also supposed to have said, "If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it." The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself.)

With their endless appetite for talk and attention, extroverts also dominate social life, so they tend to set expectations. In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. "People person" is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like "guarded," "loner," "reserved," "taciturn," "self-contained," "private"—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. "Introverts," writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money? (I'm not making that up, either), "are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness." Just so.

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation.

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?"

Third, don't say anything else, either.

4 comments:

Mary said...: Happy Birthday Luna!!! You are an amazing woman. Thanks for being such a good friend to Tina. I would love to meet you one day!!

Mary; Friday, August 29, 2008
justjuls said...: Aw - Happy birthday Lisa!
Keep on making Keet's world a little bigger one snake and river at a time.; Friday, August 29, 2008
Anonymous said...: OH MY GOSH!!! I thought I'd check for the heck of it to see if you have written anything lately. I was flabbergasted!!! No one has ever said so many nice things about me. And I know you meant it. You make me sound like the kind of person I would want to be best friends with. HaHa!!! Thank you so much for your friendship. I thank God he brought us back together again.
Lovely Luna (that still has to sign anonymous because she is almost computer illiterate); Saturday, August 30, 2008
Merc said...: Happy Birthday Luna! I'm so glad Henry found such a good soulmate. You're both lovely ladies and I'm glad to know you.; Sunday, August 31, 2008

Simply Me

Friday, August 29, 2008

Lovely Luna

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