A little research, a little theory, but mostly conversations about how curiosity shows up in work and life.
Airing Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. and Fridays at noon EST on WERA-LP 96.7 FM, or streaming at wera.fm. Find the the show on iTunes, Stitcher Mixcloud, SoundCloud
Before there was the radio show, there was the blog. Every week, twice a week, for two full years, I chronicled the path from where I was to...wherever it was I was going. I wrote:
I dodged cancer, wrote the last tuition check, mourned friends gone too soon and decided the universe was trying to tell me something. Life is short, it seemed to be saying. Don’t waste the free pass.
So I left the job I had held for a dozen years at an organization I’d loved for nearly thirty. So did my husband. We stepped out into the unknown together – and here we are, figuring it out. My plan is to get a plan.
It’s like being the twenty-somethings our sons actually are.
So I’m listening to the universe, trying to learn the lessons it has to offer. Some of the lessons are awesomely big, some are tenderly small.
Every minor tragedy, victory or inane moment of my sons’ youth (and, admittedly, young adulthood to-date and likely well into our mutual decrepitude) has or will potentially be fodder for what I call a “Life Lesson.” I trust they’ve grown accustomed to my pronouncements in this regard. Here, I’m trying to collect the ones I’ve been learning – memorializing them for myself and anyone else who will listen.
Who am I to give life lessons? Just a girl grown up, with grey hair and laugh-lines to show for it. Daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother; hard-working, mission-driven former executive; unrepentant volunteer; middling cook; reliable ear to the universe and others.
Life Lesson #1: The unexamined life isn’t worth living — and the best things in life are shared. ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ
In the course of blogging, I chronicled my deepening relationship with Arlington Independent Media, WERA and community radio, not really knowing where it would take me, but enjoying the journey.
The adventure began at the Central Library, in the Fall of 2014. I attended the Leadership Arlington Homecoming "LEAD Talks" -- like TED Talks, but way less intimidating. A lovely talk on the Five Precepts of Service stood out as both instructive and inspiring. I decided I wanted to give such a talk.
A year later, back at the Library, I fulfilled my promise to myself -- with a talk about curiositythat proved far more fateful than I could ever have imagined. At the end of the event, Arlington Independent Media's director of community programs Jackie Steven shared exciting news: a new low-power FM community radio station was launching soon in Arlington. She urged us to visit and learn more.
I took my curiosity to AIM to check out the new station.
I was clearly the newbie in the room.
These guys were serious. They’d been DJs in college. They had recording equipment in their basements, maybe even their living rooms. They had opinions about FCC rulings, recent and historic.
They had their prepared program proposals at the ready.
And, yet, they were so gracious. They were delighted to have new people show up, thrilled to share what they knew, eager to encourage interest and involvement. I give them real props for this mark of true enthusiasts, that newcomers were welcomed and embraced, rather than regarded as just more competition to be crushed.
I never really thought about radio before, but now I’m checking my calendar to book basic studio training, and supplemental audio editing skills after that. It’s fun to be contemplating yet another learning curve on the winding river of this new life.
Life Lesson #28: You never know where life will take you – especially if you let it.
I began to experiment with audio blogs. I took classes. And then it happened...
I tested the mics and set the levels. I prepped the auxiliary track. I cued us up. I managed friendly banter with B., and a not-too-shabby segue to my clip. And it all worked. And it was all fun. And I thought: wow.
I pulled the headphones off to friendly applause, flushed with the realization that I can do this. That this hypotheticalcan become actualin a not so unthinkable way. That even if the station doesn’t pick up my show, I can make a credible podcast, anyway.
That I can see myself doing this.
Days later, I got the call: my proposal to do a show about curiosity had been accepted. When did I want to start broadcasting? "Don't let me think about it too long,"I told the caller, "I'll start in May." That was just six weeks away. I had no programs. I was barely trained. But I hustled and the big day quickly came: ingestion.
I just ingested my first episode.
That doesn’t mean that I have swallowed the flash drive I was carrying in my sweaty palm, although it feels a little that way. It means I just took the irrevocable step of uploading for broadcast the .WAV file that is my first radio show.
It’s gone, or up, or in, or some placethat shows go before they are on the air. Thathappens on Wednesday, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, at WERA-LP 96.7 FM. oh my!
It’s a B+ effort – good, not great; plenty of room for improvement, but credible for a first try. I could recite you all the places that could use more clean-up, that aren’t exactly as I’d like them. But that would be true if I’d spent another 1,000,000,000 hours on it…and life is short. I could recite all those places, but I’ve chosen to learn their lessons and move on. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Too much time on this would take the joy out of it — and what’s the point of that?!
Walking to the studio this afternoon I realized the lesson felt familiar, a little like the pottery class I took some years ago. I learned then that there comes a time with every pot when you just have to stop. More messing with it won’t improve it; it will only collapse the whole thing in on itself. What was once a charmingly slightly off-kilter bowl will suddenly be a sullen lump of mud if over-worked.
The show began to feel like that. Improvements weren’t; tinkering risked clunkers. It was time to stop.
And — to go. Forward. On to the next show, to the new lessons, to a better version of good.
Life Lesson #41: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
And so the show was birthed. With it came accounts at Mixcloud, SoundCloud, Facebook, Twitter and eventually iTunes and Stitcher. I've grown competent with field mics, mixing clips, and booking talent; with Canva, Spinitron, and even GarageBand. On the first anniversaryof what I've come to consider my "curiosity adventure" I celebrated:
So, I feel pretty confident the universe has spoken.
One guest wrote to me after our interview that he though I had found my calling. A cousin described my picture in the WETA segment as radiant. Another guest, early on, said simply: “Look at you: you gotta!”
True enough: I gotta.I wake each day with conceptual threads weaving in my head. I keep long lists of conversations I still want to have. My email is a mess of leads and shows in various stages of incubation. My shelves are a tumble of related reading. My Christmas list? Probably Pro Tools apps and some decent headphones.
What a difference a year makes. What a difference a leap makes. What a difference.
In my most recent show, I paid tribute to analogies, a "Choose to be Curious"staple. At the close of each show, I ask my guests to make an analogy to curiosity with whatever word we pull from my jar. Here's today's: Community radiois like curiosity because it allows us to unearth treasures hidden in our midst...it encourages us to listen to new voices...and it provides a vehicle for discovery and adventure.
