NYR1 down - National Geographic magazine subscription

First off, NYR is short of “New Year’s Resolution” because I can’t bear to impose upon myself to follow any list of any kind for self-improvement.  I experience enough stress without any added frustration.  I start small on the annual goals.  So while I don’t yet have an actual list of New Year’s resolutions, I DO keep a list of little, more manageable to-dos, which sidesteps the disappointment that I start to feel when I’m not moving at a fast-enough pace.  Also a to-do sounds much cuter and, well, more do-able, don’t you think?  Resolution sounds grandiose and executive-y, to me, anyway.  Besides, I may do something, but it’s not necessarily resolved…and I might change my mind and decide that I look too old and droopy once the weight is off…and opt for plumpness after all because it appears taut and minimizes wrinkleage.  You just never know.  

Back to the topic:

My first “thing” to cross off for 2007 was to order my family a subscription to National Geographic.  It came to me a few days ago when we were sitting at the dentist’s office and I became so engrossed in an issue that I wanted my son’s filling to take longer.  Isn’t that awful?  But I was blown away by a little blurb on the formation of snowflake shapes at different temperatures, and then a brief history of Dubai.  I was riveted.

I had that magazine at my disposal for my entire childhood and youth.  I had forgotten how entertained I was by that magazine all growing up — and, no, not by the topless natives.  I was taken with the big, wide world around me through the breathtaking photography every month.  I even came to appreciate the articles by the time I was about 10 or so.  I was a geek, I know.

My mother, an artistic and cultured person, NEVER threw out an issue my entire childhood.   I remember her keeping a barrister bookcase chock FULL of National Geographic issues (at least 300 of them) going back into the mid-1960s.  What’s more — there wasn’t a single issue that I didn’t peruse in the span of my 22 years in that house.  And, yes, that magazine is from where I came to appreciate other cultures and lands to which I would have otherwise never been exposed.  National Geographic was an education unto itself for a little girl in suburban Texas. It felt good to feel small and to know that there was so much “out there” still to know.

There were also often articles, of course, on American locales and people…places that, even though reachable to me, probably won’t be destinations in my lifetime.  And there were stories of a variety of animals and of the sea, and of science.  But it’s the people and lands that stand out most to me.

I think the articles that featured children my age — say, a bejeweled and bangled young Thai girl dancing or a dark but ghostly-looking Tanzanian boy, staff in hand, on the Serengeti – are what most impressed me.  Either I noticed that they were poorer than I, some days seemed more content than I, seemed so intriguingly deep, or their lives were so foreign (you think?) that I decided that I wanted to be an understanding citizen on this wonderful planet, to see the beauty in things that were strange to me and even sometimes disturbing.  The stories weren’t always pretty, but they were all enlightening. 

In short, National Geographic taught me about the challenges of humanity and universality of people’s interests – politics, economy, religion, and culture – trickling down to concepts of beauty, goodness, kinship, and progress.  It is where I learned that the world extended far beyond my family’s little corner.  It opened my mind to possibilities of missions work in jungles or *gasp* fantasies about joining the Peace Corps.  I even considered anthropology as a major, no doubt due to the fund of knowledge gained from all of my reading done on the floor, in front of that bookcase.  And photography is a favorite hobby.  And though I haven’t gotten as far as I would like to experience the world in the way I dreamed of, the magazine did foster some of my earliest memories and even helped me in school, and even in my views of art. 

I’m excited to get that first issue this month.  I think that magazine has even improved since I was a kid, if that was possible.  In my opinion, if you’ve got kids, this should always be out on the coffeetable.

Want to also subscribe or take a look-see?: www.nationalgeographic.org

All photos shown above are from National Geographic’s website.

~ by Galvanized on January 8, 2007.