It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Speaking while voiceless

The worst part is the feeling of the strain, the empty weight of impotence in your throat.  Your mouth opens again – if you try harder, someone will hear, someone will help.

Most of us know that dream, the one in which you are in mortal danger, trying to scream for help, or in protest, or simply to speak to explain, yet no sound emerges – you are voiceless.

The real-life analogue is less dramatic than the scenarios spun by the horror-writer of the subconscious, but no less disempowering.  And waking up is more difficult.

The disconnect between the instructions we receive and the realities we face rob each of us of our voice – of our right to be heard, to speak, to share, to be understood.

As children we are told, “Speak up so I can hear you,” but also “Don’t be so loud.”  Those of us who are introverted get told, “Get out of your shell, socialize more,” but we often find ourselves faced with confused looks that fade into disinterest when we attempt to reach out, to offer our opinions, because no one really wants to hear the in-depth explanation.  “Vote,” we are told.  “Your voice matters.”  So we cast our ballots.  And nothing changes.  “Be yourself.  Be authentic.”  But, the subtext implies, “Make sure your authentic self isn’t too different from the culturally accepted norm.”

I was hushed in the delivery room.  In labor with my first child, my voice crying out in the primal vocalization of mothers throughout species and millennia, I was hushed.  “You’ll upset the other patients,” I was told.  The natural cry of my body wasn’t acceptable. 

I gritted my teeth, silenced my voice, and retracted the authenticity of my moans.

Women were institutionalized for libido.  The very term hysteria derives from the notion that madness in women is connected to the womb.

When I was small, I made stew from my plastic alphabet letters.  Not soup, which I guess would have made sense in the greater social context, but stew.  I liked stew better.  It never occurred to me that to make soup, or WORDS, with the letters would have been more “normal.”  There were toys, and I was playing.  This moment of random play somehow became family shorthand for “Christy is different.”

I posted a painting of nude faeries.  This simple act – to me, an artistic experiment in pen and watercolor without first sketching in pencil – prompted familial concerns that I was mentally unstable. 

I deleted the painting from my Facebook page, agreeing to censor myself rather than enter into conflict or cause concern to those I love.

Emily Dickinson wrote it well, “Much madness is divinest sense, to a discerning eye.  Much sense the starkest madness, ‘tis the majority.”

A good friend once described me as having a perspective that is “rotated slightly from that of the collective norm.”

We all hold individual perspectives – rotated, spun, warped, askew, inside-out.  Yet there is a pretense that everyone agrees on certain things, that there is a collective consensus on matters of morality, social acceptability, even esthetics.

At the same time, we acknowledge the ills in our society – racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, able-ism, income disparity, relationship dysfunction. 

I submit that those ills are born of the tacit collusion to conform.  The only people who have ever effected real change to society’s sicknesses have been those who speak the truth of their individual experience, those who stand up and paint, write, speak, sculpt, protest, sing, or research from the basis of their unique thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.

Avoiding subject matter that strikes at the viscera buried beneath our collective comfort isn’t sanity, it is mass denial.

A keystone of this pretense of majority standards is one unspoken, yet persistent, rule: “Only those who are famous, dead, or otherwise special may break with the group.  Anyone else who acts as an individual or rebels against homogeny is disturbed.”

It takes courage to stand up and declare oneself “special” enough to break with the flock.  It’s hard not to bend under the shame of the implicit hubris of daring to declare individuality.  For those of us who love our families and friends, there is the added burden of knowing that our individual truths touch on and stem from the experiences of those we love.

Every personal essay I write risks exposing those I love to pain or embarrassment.  Visual art that acknowledges human (or hominoid) anatomy or that pokes into dark or uncertain places of the psyche may break through the comfort zones of my loved ones.

I’m not famous, dead (yet), or particularly talented.  And that is why I write and paint.  I use the “voice” of art in hopes that my doing so will give others some sort of permission to share their own truths.

Sometimes that truth comes about by accident.  My “shocking” painting wasn’t intended as social protest.  The off-scale genitalia resulted from poor technique rather than any sort of fixation.  I hadn’t painted a male nude before, and as an exercise in reducing my perfectionist tendencies, I have been experimenting with sketching in pen rather than pencil and forcing myself to share my imperfect work.

But, I’m going to file this particular imperfection under “Serendipitous Greater Meaning.”  That screwed up painting and its aftermath made me think deeper about what I do and what responsibility art bears.

Only through displaying our individual perspectives and flaws can we ever change the collective norm.

Note: I recognize that my use of the word “voice” is, in itself, a form of ableism.  Word choice and metaphor also need to be examined.  At the moment, it is the metaphor that is lodged in my brain, but I welcome conversation around that and suggestions.

Skirting Safety

A few nights ago, I went with a friend to a club in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.  I tend to look at clothing as costume – what role am I playing today? – so I’d deliberately chosen an outfit to suit the evening.  Short skirt, knee-high boots, leather jacket, acres of cleavage – basically light-years and numerous personae away from my default soccer/basketball mom uniform of jeans and scoop-neck T-shirt.

I suppose it wouldn’t be shocking for me to say, “The outfit made me nervous.”   After all, I’m a suburban mom cruising rapidly toward 45.  Many of my peers would consider that particular costume ‘daring’ and have an outbreak of nervous giggles.

And maybe that’s part of the problem…

As we got ready to leave, I did have a flash of concern, hearing the sum of decades of internalized voices – books, friends, movies, mother, grandmothers, magazines, news articles…

“It isn’t safe to go out like that.”  “You’re asking to get raped.”  “You aren’t THAT kind of girl.” “Cellulite.” “Sagging boobs.” “Cheap.” “Classless.” “Slutty.” “It isn’t safe.” “You’re asking to get raped.”

The astute reader will notice the repeat of two phrases.

That split second showed how deeply the message that women’s sexuality causes rape runs. 

There isn’t much I can say about the dangers of victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and rape culture that hasn’t already been said more eloquently and with better references by others.  But I think it’s worthwhile to point out the small moments in which this form of misogyny infiltrates our everyday lives.

When a woman has to worry about whether her outfit puts her in danger, something is wrong.  Men – actually, I should say white hetero-cis-men – aren’t put at risk by clothes unless Medea has been involved in the tailoring (Greek myth; look it up, folks.)

When a girl is sent to the office for wearing a top that shows her shoulders but her male classmates are not, something is wrong.

When a woman’s competence in the workplace is measured by the length of her skirt, something is wrong.

Think about it – how often have you said (or heard and nodded) any of the following:

“I can’t believe her mother let her out of the house like that.”

“That top is too distracting for the classroom/workplace.”

“If she didn’t want the attention, maybe she shouldn’t have worn that skirt.”

“Wardrobe malfunction.”

Every time we judge a woman’s worth, virtue, competence, or right to basic safety by her clothing, we contribute to a tacit okay to assault and discrimination.

For the record, I wore the outfit, went out, and had a great evening.  And I was exactly the same person, with the same rights to safety and respect, as I was the next day in my jeans and T-shirt.

Update:
In the original version of this post, I left off a critical classifier for male safety -- white.  Men of color are not given the same privilege of safety and impunity with regard to clothing as their white cohort.  Privilege and associated problems will be another post entirely, but I thought it was important to recognize that men of color are also judged and put at risk by societal attitudes toward attire.

It's also worth noting for this article that when I use the term "women" I refer to cis and trans women inclusively since we are all judged and targeted.  Masculine privilege is a more complex thing, hence the use of specific identifiers to denote the group given sartorial immunity.

Why "Fifty Shades" is Shady. Or, What Mainstream Society Can Learn From Kinky Folk

I have a shameful confession.

I read the Fifty Shades of Grey books…all three of them.

I just read them for the mystery, honest!

For the most part the writing was the sort of over-done, yet simultaneously shallow, cotton-candy fiction that tastes sweet in the moment but leaves one feeling nauseated, hollow, and sticky in a not-good way.  In retrospect, however, I’m most ashamed of having enjoyed the sex scenes.

“Well, duhhhh,” you say.   That’s the whole point.  The sort of “kinky” sex sensationalized in the books is supposed to provoke shame, to titillate with taboo.  That’s why the upcoming movie has gotten so much hype I keep forgetting it hasn’t even been released yet.  The sex portrayed in the books and movie is the fictional version of a multi-car pile-up or reality TV.  After all, the whole point is to tease our darkest fantasies while reassuring us that unlike those characters, we are “normal,” “not sick.”

And that is why I’m ashamed.  Like so many out there, I fell prey to the sensationalism.  I equated the sexual relationships depicted in the book with actual kink and like many others, was happy to level judgment before returning to my vanilla world.

And therein lies the danger of these books and of similar movie and TV scenes – the sex so luridly described bears about as much resemblance to actual BDSM (the acronym stands for Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism) as the “Real Housewives” of Whatevertown bear to any of our friends, neighbors, or selves.

But, BDSM, like any culture or practice that doesn’t fall under the middle of the societal bell-curve we call “normal” makes for an easy media target.  Many of the elements and practices commonly employed in BDSM touch uncomfortable places in the collective psyche.  Cuffs, rope, whips, clamps, hoods – these things have become societal symbols for horror and even torture.  The common narrative then, is that anyone who enjoys using or receiving any of these things is sick or troubled.

What if I told you that mainstream society could learn a lot about healthy relationships – mental, emotional, and, yes, sexual from BDSM practitioners?

I can’t speak to all societies, but at least in the U.S., we do a terrible job of acknowledging and accepting our own fears and darknesses.  We so desperately fear the shadow-self – our inherent violence, wildness, and uniqueness – that we live lives of pallid conformity.  We confine ourselves in matching, stucco boxes with manicured lawns and granite countertops.  We avert our eyes from the “different” – the ones who stick out, who talk to themselves, who dress outside the rules of gender conformity.  And we hide in the darkness, consuming diets of shame, corn syrup, and clandestine porn.  We don’t discuss the things we want.  We don’t admit our deepest needs, even to ourselves.  And we certainly don’t negotiate in our relationships to meet those needs.

Consent and Communication

This is why I’m ashamed of having enjoyed the Fifty Shades books.  I’m not ashamed that individual elements spoke to some of my fantasies.  I’m not ashamed of having been turned on by descriptions of bondage.  I’m ashamed of not having recognized the portrayal of an abusive relationship for what it is.  Like so many others, I assumed that coercion was just part of the sex, that all “kink” was essentially abusive.

And that is where I was terribly wrong.

BDSM is a partnership that depends on clear communication and explicit consent for the emotional and physical safety of ALL partners.  When you are playing with power, pain, or bondage, without a solid foundation for trust and a clear plan, things can go quite wrong quite fast – for both parties.  That’s why folks in BDSM relationships tend to negotiate and discuss details before anything physical ever transpires. 

“Do you like X?”

 “I’m really triggered by Y, so that’s off the table for me.”

 “I’m into D, but if you aren’t, that’s okay.”

 “Let’s use ABC if you need me to slow things down or back off.  Say XYZ if you need to end play.”

What if we entered ALL relationships with this sort of clear understanding of our own and each other’s needs and limitations? 

Think about it. 

How many of you have taken a job without negotiating a written contract in advance? (*raises hand*)  How many of you have had that same job go awry due to a lack of clear understanding on both parts? (*raises hand again*)

How many times do we send our children off to be taught without knowing the pedagogical approach of the teacher or having a clear understanding of the lines of communication in the school?

How many times in romantic relationships do we flounder around, waiting for a “signal” from the other person to direct our actions or responses?  How often do we hesitate to ask for what we need or give our partner honest feedback about what works or doesn’t work for us?

How often do we get into fights or feel resentment because neither partner really knows what the other expects or has a clear sense of “role?”

Before engaging with any of my BDSM partners –oh, don’t look so shocked; you didn’t really think I was writing all this from a purely academic perspective – I have a clear idea of their preferences and concerns, and I know that I have communicated my own likes and limits.  Each of us knows that there will be kinks (no, I couldn’t resist) to be worked out.  And we will have communicated enough to trust that if something doesn’t work quite right, we’ll work through it cooperatively rather than from a place of damaged ego.

If all this sounds like a pretty far cry from the villainous dungeon masters, neurotic submissives, and manipulative doms of TV and movie-land, it is.  Media tropes may be silly and seem harmless, but a message repeated becomes a pattern; clichés lodge in our brains until we lose the nuance.

I’ll be writing several posts on this theme.  I have no desire to convert anyone to kink (ewwwwww), nor am I looking for shock value.  Rather, my goal here is the same as with all of my writing, to normalize variation, and maybe, if I do it right, to help others see themselves and each other as individuals rather than tropes.

 

No Closets in Davis -- My Coming Out

“What’s that on your arm?  Have you been bar-coded or prison tattooed?”

My oldest daughter was hanging out on my couch before biking across town to her dad’s house, and we were doing the post-last-day-of-school debrief.  She looked at her arm and chuckled, explaining that since she didn’t buy a yearbook, a friend had signed her arm, which, she said, was better than her forehead.

“What’s it say?”

“#GAYVASIAN2014.  That’s what he put in everyone’s yearbook.  He’s gay and very, very proud of it.”  She grinned and laughed the sort of amused, partially delighted laugh she has over any of her friends’ enthusiasms.  “He and another kid go around asking people, ‘Why are you straight?’” She laughed again, “There are no closets in Davis!”

“Well,” I bantered.  “Why <i>are</i> you straight?”  We’ve long since had the ‘you can be attracted to boys or girls, everyone is unique’ discussion.

She waved her arm in my direction and raised an eyebrow.  “Pot.  Kettle.  Why are <i>you</i> straight?”

“Well, actually, I think I identify more as flexible than straight.”  I don’t even know if she caught it; the conversation drifted back to whose phone numbers she’d gotten preparatory to getting together over the summer.  In the grand scheme of talks, it wasn’t a big deal.

Except it was.

For all that we have raised our kids to be accepting of everyone (as long as they aren’t assholes), this was the first time (as far as I know) that either their dad or I had ever given any of our kids any indication that they have a parent (me) who doesn’t fit in the heteronormative, monogamous box.

Most people who know me at all, even through social media, know me as a staunch LGBT ally.  A straight one.  From the outside, my closet looks like a tidy bedroom.  No secrets, no variation from the expected.  Didn’t date much before marriage, but only dated men.  Married to one man for 17 years, recently separated, I look like an educated, middle class, middle-aged, straight, white, cis-woman – maybe with a creative streak, maybe slightly quirky, but nothing unexpected or “out there.”

My closet is quite livable.  It’s spacious, nicely furnished, has a fridge and a mini-bar.  Hiding in it produces precious little pain or inconvenience to me, and my world isn’t terribly different inside the closet than it would be outside.

But I’m increasingly confronted with the realization that remaining in that closet is both untrue to me and a betrayal of those around me.  I have friends and loved ones for whom “coming out of the closet” has been a necessary leap of courage and has come at a cost.  I have three children, and while they all give every indication, as I did at their age, of fitting into society’s boxes, I wonder about the cost to them when they find, as I did, some portion of themselves that doesn’t match with the models they’ve been shown.

It’s been easy for me to keep parts of myself hidden.  I justify it by telling myself that my life is none of anyone else’s business, that I don’t want people using what they know about me to speculate about my decisions or relationships.  But, that is, to a certain degree, bullshit.  Those who would speculate and gossip about me have probably already done so.

And there is a larger responsibility at play. While I don’t owe everyone the details of everything I think or do, I think there is a certain societal obligation to show up as one’s authentic self.  By not doing so, by presenting only the pieces of ourselves that we think are acceptable to the majority, we make it harder for each individual to step out of his or her own closet.

Think about it.  If each of us revealed more of the things we keep hidden – our differences, our quirks, our secret shames – what would be left to fear or hide?

The only way to make it so that there are truly “No closets in Davis” (or San Francisco, Topeka, Juneau, etc.) is to normalize our differences, to celebrate the many ways of being.

I grew up in a loving, supportive, and fairly liberal family.  There wasn’t much in the way of gender stereotyping – my sister and I had Tonka trucks as well as dolls, we learned to shoot as well as sew.  No one ever overtly said that any one way of being was superior, but assumptions trickled through as they do in most families.  “When you start bringing home boys….”  “When you get married…”  “When you have kids…”

In my family, you married one person of the opposite gender – for life.  The few divorces in the extended family were mentioned obliquely or not referenced at all.  If anyone in my family didn’t fit squarely into the heterosexual box, I never knew about it.  None of this was touted as the “right” way; there just wasn’t another way that was ever shown or discussed.

By the time I got to college (I was a late bloomer), it was pretty clear to me that I was mostly attracted to people with boy parts.  I felt relief.  My life would be easy.  Conventional.  No need to rock any societal boats.  I could crusade for others from the security held by a member of the privileged majority.

Except.

Every so often, I’d catch myself looking at another woman’s breasts or legs or lips.  I’d be drawn to a friend, find myself fantasizing.  And then it would pass – or so I told myself.  If by pass, I meant the feeling would be ruthlessly squashed back into the corner of my mind from which it had leaked.

At the same time, navigating the emotional complexities of dating within a fairly narrow group of friends, I found myself repeatedly battling strong feelings for more than one person at a time. 

This wasn’t just a potentially problematic side of myself – it was completely unacceptable.  I’d been raised on fairytales and romantic stories.  And as I was the product of eight years of Catholic school, the whole relationship/attraction road was pockmarked with potholes that dropped straight to Hell anyway.  Everything I knew was clear on this point.  While it was fine for some people – not me because I was straight, of course – but some people to be attracted to or love someone of the same sex, having feelings for more than one person was just wrong.  In my head, that capacity – to love and be attracted deeply to more than one person at a time – made me a bad person regardless of whether I acted upon it.

I folded, squashed, and pounded these errant desires into submission, never realizing that I was packing away parts of myself, that by denying how I love, I was inhibiting my ability to love, to connect, to show up and be present as my full self.

Accepting that I can be attracted to individuals regardless of sex or gender (yes, those are two distinct things) and that I am capable of connecting with and loving multiple people in multiple ways has, rather than breaking me, made me better able to form friendships, be confident in my daily life, and open myself more fully to the people I love.

That’s the problem with closets.  When we hide – from others or from ourselves – the things that we fear will be unacceptable to others, we deny our essence, and we limit the gifts we could give.  Also, by hiding the things we fear, the things that make us different, we contribute to the other-ization of those traits.

Human beings aren’t homogenous.  We aren’t tidily layered in all the same flavors.  We don’t fit in boxes or on distinct points along a line.  We’re a messy, lovely, kaleidoscopic jumble flowing along a vast spectrum.

In the last few years I’ve done enough research to learn that there are not only labels for my ways of being – pan-sexual, polyamorous – but there are lots of people like me, and a fair bit of research to suggest that, especially for a cis-gendered woman, the ways in which I am attracted and love are biologically quite normal.

I don’t much like labels, and there are nuances to both terms that don’t always fit me, but they are as good a step out of a closet as any.  I’ve shied away from publicly owning them until now because I worried that people would latch onto the words and see every one of my actions through the filter of the labels.  And, that may happen.  But if it does, that is the choice of the people seeing me.  My actions are my choice and my reasons for my choices remain private, mine.  However, who I am, how I show up – well, that is part of my obligation to society, to my family, and to myself.

So, I’m throwing out a challenge.  Whatever your closet: you live in a family of vegetarians but sneak out for a burger; you’re an atheist who accompanies your family to church because it’s the thing to do; you let your young kids watch action movies but tell them not to talk about it with their friends; you’re an intuitive or artist among scientists and trying desperately to seem rational…whatever your closet, think about how hiding inside it prevents those you love from knowing the entire you, think about how remaining in your closet may inadvertently be causing others to stay in theirs.

What would happen if there really were no closets in Davis…or Omaha, or Seattle, or Madrid, or…

[Note: I’m deliberately not defining terms in this essay.  If you are unfamiliar with a word I’ve used or don’t understand the distinctions, and especially if you call me friend, ask.  I’ll be more than happy to explain and discuss – outside the closet!]

Banish the Should -- Notes from Yale Creek, 2013

Everything I love about the hour around dawn has coalesced.  The chill, silent breeze embraces the deck where I curl into a futon, glad for my sweatshirt and jeans.  A blank notebook, the first after a too-long hiatus, is propped against my knees.  A thump echoes behind my right shoulder.  The tree just missed my head.  I pick up the lumpy green apple, salute the tree and the rising sun peeking from behind the hill, and take a bite.  Clicking my pen, I begin to write.

The tree threw an apple at me, so I thanked it for my snack.  The lambs have awoken the hillside, bawling their cotton ball dreams to their mothers.  The cows respond with the bass line from downslope.  Light is peering between the hills across the valley.  Its bleary eyes chase a jet trail into the periwinkle sky.

We’re an early lot this morning, kids trickling out of tents and beds.  The occasional body is still cocooned in odd places, the couch, the deck, none in the bathtub, though.

Brand new notepad for dreaming, for letting my pen slide across the lines, straying into the unknown spaces.

The apple was tart and crisp-perfect – until I went too far and got a bitter mouthful of the wormy center.  I spat the metaphor into the bushes and chucked my gift from Newton after.

I have a headache born of a hard mattress and too little sleep.  The moon awoke me on its path; it barged into my window, a violent, beautiful intruder stabbing my eyes with a white knife.

Instruments are everywhere, guitars gossiping in the corners and spilling onto the couch, cellos and violins in their black suits by the hearth.  Here and there the oddball – the almost banjo made from a Sierra Nevada case (perhaps that’s what the guitars are criticizing in their living room klatch), a violin case cracked open in an arm chair, a bongo drum standing mute by the coffee table, Caitlin’s cello case, alone in electric blue glory in a sea of black nylon.

The writing meanders through the week at Yale Creek Farm, drifting down the hill to examine the hops climbing their poles, digging its toes into the mud of the pond with the tiny, translucent leeches, sitting at the edge of a mosquito-bitten evening, listening to campfire tunes drift from the odd conglomerate of cellos, violins and guitars who have magically formed an orchestra.

It is a week of fundamentals – the building of shelter (in the form of two straw/clay construction cabins), the preparation of food (for 30+ from produce gleaned and dug from the soil of the farm), and the gathering of community (through games and music and work).  My body is tired on this first morning back at home, arms and shoulders bear testimony to hours of mixing and packing of straw and clay, legs moaning gently about the hills they encountered.  Yet, the work was effortless, a form of love and play.

“Don’t should on yourself,” a friend tells us, in response to some comment about dishes or dinner prep.  Her blue eyes grin beneath black brows as she waits for us to process through the other “Sh--“ word that hits the ears first.  “Only do what brings you joy,” she finishes.

I have trouble with shoulds and with obligation and joy.  Should is a thief, stealing the joy from basic tasks, necessities.  I “should” make dinner.  I “should” put down the phone and chat with the kids.  I “should” do some laundry.  My shoulds have been particularly toxic and self-critical of late.

But, with clay beneath my fingernails, the sun on my shoulders, and the songs of strings drifting up from the pond, the shoulds are beaten back into a corner.  Anxiety, perfectionism, fear, and judgment can’t stand against the elemental nature of the moment.  A blister has formed and burst on the heel of my hand, worn there by the corner of the chunk of wood I use to pack the straw and clay mixture into the crevices of the cabin framework.  My muddy hand-prints mix with others on the shared mason jar of water one of the women has carried up the hill from the kitchen.  The water is still cool and fresh; we’ve left our fears of germs and the odd stray gnat behind in our communal thirst.

I meditate sometimes at home, on a cushion gazing into a candle flame, or eyes closed on the mosaic bench at the front of our house.  Yet, in those cultivated places, thoughts chase like amphetiminized squirrels through my brain.  In the basic acts of building, of chopping vegetables, of feeling my arms cut through the murky water of the pond, the brain centers into a deep stillness.

Thump.  Thump.  The feel of the stick ramming the straw and clay vibrates up my arm and pounds the blood inside my ears.  I swirl a sudsy sponge across the never-ending mountain of dishes in the sink.  With over 30 hungry and thirsty people, the chore is Sisyphean.  Slicing carrots into awkward sticks, joy wells inside me as a worry dashes through my head and is pushed out.  “This too,” I tell myself quietly, echoing the meditation phrase as I keep chopping.  “This too” and the should is gone.

Back home, it’s easy to feel the shoulds and self-judgments piling up.  The lists and worries started lining up at the back of my brain, demanding entry on the drive south.  I’m not quite sure how to keep them in their place.  ‘I should clean the algae from the water pitcher.’ ‘I should go for a run this morning.’

“Only do what brings you joy.”

The green scum on the paper towel, still smelling slightly of vinegar makes me smile as I rinse and fill the now clear filter pitcher.  Once I hit SAVE and upload this post, I’ll put on my running shoes.  Thinking of the feel of my feet lightly slapping the pavement, of the hard-earned strength of my legs gives me joy.  I find myself planning dinner tonight – not as an obligation, but as an act of love.

 

Guest Post: Mother's Day Thoughts

When I first started writing this blog, it didn't have much of a purpose other than to get the things trapped inside my head some oxygen.  It literally began because "It seemed like a good idea at the time."  However, over the past half-decade or so, an embryonic glimmer of a purpose has begun to unfold.  I've found that I often write to try to give space to the things many of us may feel, but may feel are not "appropriate," not "shiny," or just not "what we are supposed to feel."  As I've wandered down this path toward my own more real self, I find that I want to make that journey a little less shadowy and rocky for others.  I have no idea if I'm having any impact.  Some days, I get excited if a post gets more than 10 reads.  But, I'll keep plugging away, and if some phrase makes a difference somewhere, great.  If not, at least the thoughts have taken a breath or two.

Along those lines, I'm pleased to present a guest post by a dear friend, Eden Myers.  Eden and I were talking yesterday about Mother's Day and about our conflicted feelings around this and similar holidays.  And, underneath it all, we both suspect we aren't alone. So here is Eden's post on Mother's Day...

Now that Mother's Day is over, and safely behind us one more year, I want to take the opportunity to say something. 

Keep it to yourself.  Leave me out of it. 

This is not to take anything away from those who appreciate it, and see it as an opportunity to express how genuinely blessed they are, either as a mother or by their mother.  To quote one woman close to me, "Mother's Day is a time to reflect on how lucky I am to be a mother and how blessed I have been with the children I have."

Some of us just don't feel that way. 

There may be a reason.  Maybe we aren't mothers; maybe it just never happened for us.  Maybe for lack of trying, or lack of interest.  Maybe, bitterly, despite a great deal of time and money spent trying.  Maybe we quit trying after we lost heart along with pregnancy after pregnancy.  Maybe we just lost interest along the way.

Or maybe some of us are mothers, and we still feel like outsiders.  The experience didn't go for us the way it did for everyone else.  We lost our mothers, or our children. Or we had bad mothers and cry to ourselves alone with fear that we will do the same to our children. 

A friend recently said of holidays in general, 
 

   " I generally don't like holidays, as most of them simply end up being a great place for me to feel like a defective outsider. I hate all the expectations... I hate how it becomes a form of culturally enforced minimization and denial of the aspects of our experience that don't fit the bright, shiny, celebratory model.... I hate how all this creates a spiral that just makes it worse and worse each year for anyone who has negative experiences or relationships which tie into the holidays."


Hear, hear.

And here's what'll really feel like a left turn to most people reading this: Some of us haven't got any particular reason for feeling separate from this particular holiday.  I have a perfectly good family.  A perfect one, no, but I have them and they- they don't really have me.   I never felt like I belonged, even in my own family, even though I love them and they love me.  So this day is not the celebration for me it is for everyone else.  I am not sure this makes me defective.  DIfferent, certainly.  But defective?  I'm just at a different place on the bell curve.  It's the way it's supposed to be for me.

And I think that's true for a lot of women out there.  We're just at a different place along the bell curve; we fit into one of the categories above, or some other one that makes us feel like saying,

Keep it.  It's just not for me. 

And keep this.  Pull it out and read it early every May, and keep it in mind as you go about your celebrations.  Thanks for understanding.  Or at least not making a big deal out of it if you don't.

11 Weeks

Note: It isn't often that I share poetry publicly, so please be gentle.  This emerged from a "failed" long run yesterday in which I wound up with an incapacitating IT band strain and had to quit two miles short of my goal.  But the events started me thinking about the effects of time, not just on our bodies, but how we see ourselves and our challenges.

 

 

The first two miles pound out in creaking joints and calves of jelly.

Gratitude for the gift of a red light, stretching at the signal with the feigned impatience

of a real athlete

The old woman in the body sheds the imagined decades with the miles, each stride kicking off the dust of time.

By the time I cross from the downtown realm of the elderly, my chronological age and I are one again.

Sweat drips between my breasts, on my right, the apartment where my virginity and I parted ways – two decades ago, now.  Woman grown, wife, mother, my head turns and I see the girl holding naked hands with her lover on the brown couch, afraid to ask,

“What does this mean?”

She never asked, and the question is gone, answer blown off in the miles behind.

Over the freeway, decades falling away into light steps that blow across the asphalt pass with the frail feathers of almond and cherry.

Mile four and nearly twenty again – twenty, but for the two undergraduates sprinting by, knees reaching nearly to their upright breasts, feet kissing the ground like fairy metronomes.

The audiobook plugged into my cortex speaks of shame, compassion, and messages.  I dig from my brain thoughts of love for the nymphs leaving me with the blowing pollen and for my own body – stronger in its scars than that of the girl who never asked and never received.

Loss doesn’t care if we risk.  But, reward won’t come uninvited. 

Six miles and only bicycles and shadowy cows spreckle the landscape.  The unwelcome tension of a bladder pushed, prodded, stretched, and squashed by three pregnancies knocks against the present mind.

Tap.  Tap.  A bush over there. 

Too scanty

Tap.  Tap.  Trees?

Not shielded from the path.

Time and body converge.  The twenty year old would have risked a rupture.  I weigh the balance.

The British voice from my phone notes my slowing pace.  Judgmental bastard.  The female voice would have understood.  Phone app gent doesn’t get it.  He could just whip it out at that olive tree over there, relieve that tapping tension, and be on his merry old way, no one the wiser.

“12.2 minutes per mile.  Average pace 11 minutes 4 seconds per mile.”

Plummy prick.  Leave me alone.

Spring sky sits empty, cloud-free and bird unburdened.  They rustle and whistle from the olive trees and long grasses, crossing over the audiobook’s words:

Shame

Resilience

Trap

Connection

Vulnerability

Trust

Can one feel shame about being ashamed?  The pressure beneath the belt of my waist-pack leads me off the path of philosophy and behind a clump of fallen branches and low-hanging trees.

Crouching knees, bare ass, and fears of wet socks trump the esoteric.

A car shoots past, then a male cyclist.

I pretend to tie my shoe and make myself invisible.  A grey haired woman on a bicycle looks my way a just long enough for the rays of judgment to scorch my hair and shoulders.  I think the tree above me is a fig – leaves not yet unfurled.

I pull my underwear and shorts about me as I stand – one smooth motion, I think.  Until the invisible key locks my right knee.

Lurch.  Stagger.  Adjust waistbands in time for the next bicycle wheel to crest the hill.  I flex my leg a few times.  Ten miles.  Okay, I’m on the Golden Gate Bridge, says the part of the brain tracking the marathon course map.  11 weeks.

I try to feel salt winds on my face but have to skip down onto the gravel shoulder as a car sails round the bend.

The 42 year old knee doesn’t like this game of chicken.  Tendons that had adjusted to the stretch and contract of an even pace are rebelling against the break, the squat, and the pavement chopped like toffee.

Mother shame, says the audiobook.  Caregiver shame.  Body image shame.

Is there shame in a middle-aged woman, slogging alone down a country road?

“Oh, that’s why you have such killer legs,” said a friend meeting me around the bend of a trail.

I have killer legs, I tell them, as the knee screams and the ankle whines in sympathy.  Not even 11 miles.

The knee doesn’t care.  We compromise.  You can walk to the next bend, I say.

I cheat, picking up the pace before the road curves away.  Small betrayals don’t go unnoticed.  Unkept promises return until fulfilled.

12 miles – Off the bridge, into Sea Cliff.  Rolling hills, says my mind to the flat fields and orchards around me.

Invisible gremlins are at work on my knee with an ice-pick.  Stop.

Can’t stop.  Not even half way.

Walk.

Walking.  A truck passes.  A minivan with pressed children’s faces.  An elderly sedan.

How stupid you look, trudging along the crumbled edge of the road – blatantly not running in your fluorescent gear and purple shoes.

That is the voice of shame – not from magazines or enemies, but from the imagined places where whispers of past follies hide.

Fingers twitch at the microphone of my headset.  So easy to call.  My husband would ride up, a knight upon a silver minivan.

Follow the road.  It’s the miles that count.

Pace: 17 minutes per mile.  Average pace: 12 minutes 24 seconds.

It’s the miles.  Just do the miles.  It doesn’t matter how fast.

The run shuffles off into the lurching jog of a zombie with places to go.  Half a mile, I tell myself.  I manage about 200 yards.

Breath floats in and out with the ease of the whispering dewy grasses.  Lungs and left leg could go for miles.

Sinister persists.  I am betrayed by the right.

13 miles

14

Walking now, I’ll run up the overpass, I think.

Four strides and a whimper.  Toy cars buzz below.  Downhill will be better.

Fire and ice shoot across my knee.  The wrinkled, square face of the balding man pedaling up the hill sees the weakness.  His gnarled legs push past me in silent disdain.

Fingers press the microphone. 

“I’m not going to make it the full way.  Can you get me at the AM/PM when you come through?”  Shadows hide behind the question.  Bibbed runners pass in my head, dreaded letters paint in ghost ink next to my name in the marathon lists

D

N

F

Did. Not. Finish.

Purple vetch laces the hillside at our feet.  Girls cluster like flowers blowing at the summit’s edge.  One looks at my clothes and laughs, “Did you run here?”

“Well.  Most of the way.  But my knee gave out.”

Something passes below the laugh.  “Oh.  I thought you were going to say ‘Just kidding.’ You really ran?”

We stand at the top of the spring world.  Knee flexes.  “Yes, but I overdid it a bit today.  I think the answer is not to be 42.”

They laugh as only 13 can, free of the imaginary ailments of middle age – aches, and rent, and taxes.

“She’s training for a marathon,” my daughter tells her friends.

Goats dance on a distant hill.  A toddler staggers with purpose among the purple.

“Today didn’t work, but I can do it.  I have 11 weeks.”

 

 

 

The Pause

“The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow.” –Dr Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go!

My kids’ school curriculum has pauses built into the day; the teachers talk about the rhythm of in-breathing and out-breathing.  The space between the notes makes the music.  Negative space balances the picture.  The key points of a dialogue lie between the words.

I know these things.  I know them, but I am not good with the pause, with the negative space, with waiting.  I come from a long line of mostly Anglo-Saxon over-achievers.  My method is less to serve by standing and waiting than it is to power through with a stiff upper lip or work around with cheery flexibility.

Sometimes the universe has other plans.

I recently hit not just a pause, but a full stop, in an interaction.  No work-around.  No fix.  Not even much closure.  Stopped.  Over.  Done.

Did I mention that I’m not comfortable with powerlessness?

Ok, I said to myself, this is obviously here for a reason, just like any other setback or stressor in my life.  It’s here to show me how strong I am, to test me.  We experience pain or loss in order to know who we are, right?  I don’t pause.  I reframe.  Friendships, jobs, house, car, article or book rejection – it isn’t a loss; it’s an opportunity.  There’s a phoenix tattooed on the back of my shoulder for a reason.  I am an optimist; we pull glory from the flames and ashes.

So, in the last month or two, I have pulled out all of the stops in my attempt to show the world exactly how strong I can be.  By “the world,” I mean myself, of course.  Volunteering at the school?  Absolutely.  What do you need?  I’m there.  A co-worker needs something edited?  Sure.  I’ll put my project aside and do that right now.  Half-marathon in the rain with a cold?  No problem.  Personal best time.  A magazine client needs a feature article with a less-than two week deadline that overlaps with a conference?  Piece of cake.  I’m their girl.  In the meantime, I’ll read articles on acceptance and fully experiencing the present. 

Just let me make the present as busy as possible.

Somewhere between the rainy half marathon and Thanksgiving, things started to break down a little.  The cold didn’t seem too bad, and it had mostly resolved by the week after Thanksgiving.  The cold sores that erupted around the time of my rush-article writing could perhaps have been a clue, a warning flag on the track, if you will.  The cough that kicked in the night before we needed to pack up the kids and car to head for Anaheim for a combined conference (me) and Disneyland (Mike and the kids) trip, should probably have told me to at least slow down.

I did slow down.  We only went to Disneyland for a couple of hours the evening that we arrived.  I only ran 2.5 miles on the treadmill the next morning.  Oh, and lifted some weights.  By midway through the conference, my cough was bad enough that I had to walk out of the middle of a talk on recurrent airway obstruction in horses – not ironic at all.  I backed off to two miles on the treadmill that morning.

By the time we were heading home, Mike wound up driving both halves of the trip since I couldn’t do anything without coughing until I was blind.  The holiday party for my job began two hours after we arrived home.  We went.

I went to work the next day, but I’d begun to recognize a problem.  I called my doctor’s office for an appointment, not because my chest hurt when I tried to breathe, or because I felt like crap.  No, I called because I couldn’t run, and it was interfering with my marathon training schedule.  Yes, somewhere in all of that rushing around the “waiting place,” I had registered for the San Francisco marathon in June.

I did take the weekend off.  Well, except for the few hours spent helping my boss edit a speech and running errands on Sunday, that is.

By yesterday (Monday), I was feeling “better,” but I decided to work from home, to rest.  That may have been the first intelligent choice I’ve made in weeks.  But, my body decided that it was too little, too late.  As I was chatting with a friend at the school between pick up times for Sierra and Aidan, it started.  The bright sunlight began to waver between the bare branches of the trees.  I looked toward the shaded buildings – circles shimmered on the yellow walls.  I rummaged through my purse, but naturally, my pills were in my other bag.

Migraine.  My body’s personal stop sign.

There is no multi-tasking through a migraine, at least not for me.  There is nothing but a dark room, a pillow, and the wait.  Waiting for sleep to come.  Waiting for the pain to go.  Waiting.

You can take medication to make the migraine go away sooner, to reduce the length of the inevitable hangover, but there is no escape.  I can’t busy my way out of a migraine.  I can’t read or write – light stabs through my retina and straight into my brain.  Music or books on tape are out.  Sound makes me want to vomit.  A migraine leaves me alone in the dark, with only my own thoughts for company.

Guess what.  That is where we really find ourselves.  Where we learn who we are, how strong we are.  We don’t learn what we can handle when we are rushing around, when we’re bursting with physical, mental, and emotional fitness.  We find ourselves in the broken places, in the dark, with our heads splitting open and leaking tears into our pillows.

Yes, I have articles to write, and marathon training to do.  But I also have healing to do.  The universe only has to whack me over the head so many times before I finally get it.  I’ll take today as a sick day, rest my body and mind, and embrace my time in the waiting place.  I won’t be here forever.  I have things to do.

 

Why I run

“May the wind be at your back,” a friend posted to my Facebook wall when I commented on my half-marathon for the weekend.  As I passed our kids’ school, somewhere around mile 9, in the pelting rain, the allusion to a song sung at the closing of each school year seemed cruelly ironic.

May troubles be less

And blessings be more

And nothing but happiness come to your door.

May you have luck wherever you go

Your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow.

May wind be at your back

And sun be overhead

May friends be at your side

Wherever you are led.

The wind, rather than being at my back, had been slapping me in the face with pelting rain for the past mile or two, so likewise, the sun was decidedly not overhead.  As for friends, well, my family was sick, and most folks with any sense were inside, probably with books, blankets, and hot chocolate.  But, as I passed the red walls of the schoolyard, and turned down a side-street and blessedly out of the wind, I realized that my blessings are indeed more, and that this run was reinforcing my awareness of them.

“You can’t run away from trouble.  There ain’t no place that far.” – Uncle Remus

You can’t run from your past – from your actions, choices, or emotions.  But, you can run to understand your past, and to understand that like each stride, every choice you’ve already made is done.  Yesterday’s race took me from downtown Davis onto the university campus, past the dorm I lived in my freshman year – where I had my first kiss, my first broken heart, my first D on a test, and where, years after my residence there, I would meet my husband at a party in my old room.

The girl who lived in that room is gone.  Her choices are made, her tests are taken.  She packed up her boxes at the end of the year and left the room to a full generation’s worth of new freshmen.  Yet, without her choices, without her pains, joys, and growth, the woman that I am would never have passed her dorm on a rainy Saturday 24 years later.

We ran past the apartments where I lived my junior and senior years of college.  In that apartment, I learned to co-exist in a group other than my family, I experienced rejection and acceptance, I lost my virginity, and gained confidence.  I don’t live there anymore.  I am not that young woman either.  She looked at the future and saw a blank slate of dreams and terrifying facelessness.  I see the faces of loved ones in every leaf and raindrop, and I know that reality and dreams are equally ephemeral.

We ran through Village Homes, where several friends live, past the lawn of the commons where the children of friends have had their 8^th grade graduation ceremonies.  My brain read the street signs, straight from Middle Earth, “Bombadil” “Oakenshield.”  I’ve never been able to stand Tolkien, but my husband and kids are Lord of the Rings fanatics.  But, even evenings spent watching the movies, or listening to my kids debate the finer points of the stories are, in a way, gone.  More are likely to come, as I am likely to take more strides on many more runs.  But, each footprint, each laugh, each argument lies behind us.

I run to get stronger.

Down a slope, up a hill.  Every mile I run is a mile I couldn’t have managed five years ago.  Every drive of my legs is a step further than I once thought I could take.

As a confirmed nerd, I never really connected physical fitness with mental or emotional strength.  After all, jocks are dumb, right?  Insensitive.  I’ll admit it; I bought the stereotypes for longer than I care to acknowledge. I married a former jock, who is quite literally a genius (and more sensitive than he would willingly admit.)  I’ve known plenty of fit, astute people.  But I didn’t get it.  Didn’t get that there could be a coordination between the body and the brain, or the heart.

Mens sana en corpore sano, said the Romans.  A sound mind in a sound body. 

When I run faster or farther than I have before, when I sprint a steeper hill, or run into a bitter north wind without walking, I remember that I can do more than I thought.  If I can run one mile, I can run two.

If I can face losing a pet, I can accept the loss of a friend.  If I can handle a tiff with my husband, I can take my children yelling “I hate you!”  If I can brave a run before dawn, I can call an intimidating source for an interview.  If I can run three miles in ten minutes less than I could a few years ago, I can meet my deadlines.  If I can lace up my running shoes and hit the pavement when my body wants to crawl back under the covers, I can create something beautiful even when my mind wants to crawl into a drink or a pint of ice cream. If I can cross the overpass above the freeway that sent me into panic attacks a year ago, I can handle professional scrutiny or brave sending my work out for rejection. If I can run past aching muscles, I can work, live, love, and laugh through an aching heart.

There’s no such thing as a bad run.

It may feel like I’m slogging through oatmeal.  I may have gotten cramps or a migraine two miles in and had to walk for the day.  I may not have met my goal for time or distance.  I may be bored.  I may hate every minute.  The endorphins may have gone to find another home that day.  But, even the “bad” runs, the off days, the days when I want to indulge my inner self (who is a 400 lb, borderline-alcoholic recluse with some serious control issues), even those runs make me stronger.  I didn’t stay on the couch.  I built some muscle fiber, some aerobic capacity, burned some calories, remodeled some bone, saw some trees, birds, and sky.  Not meeting my goal doesn’t negate the value of the run.

I may not like every experience of a given day, week, month, or year.  I may wish that any or all of it could be different, that the problems would magically resolve.  I don’t like loss, rejection, failure, chaos, or stress any more than I like sore muscles, blisters, stitches in my side, nausea, aching knees, or sciatica.  But, just as the latter things are the inevitable accompaniments to the benefits of running, the former pains go hand-in-hand with the joys of life.  Sore legs remind me that I am building muscle.  Sorrow, anger, and even regret remind me that I am building strength.

I run to feel better about myself.

Yep, I’m vain.  I am a stronger, braver, kinder, more patient person when I feel good about myself.  And, though it may be shallow, I feel better when I look better.  I read a gem online a while ago.  It was one of those pithy eCards on someone’s page.  “I don’t exercise to be healthy.  I exercise to look sexy as f—k. Naked.”

Yep, you’d better believe I repeat that one to myself when the running gets hard.  It may be lofty to exercise for one’s health, or mental balance, or as an example to one’s children, but when you hit that last couple of miles, and everything burns, and you really only want to either vomit or die – whichever the body is willing to do first – loftiness is of little use.  When things really get tough, the world narrows down to a very tight core.  We call it selfishness, and maybe it is.  But, it is the place of survival, a place of hardness and resolve.  In that place, yeah, you’d better believe it – I tell myself that I exercise to look sexy as f—k.  Naked.

If the base goals help us to get past the bottom, to come out again into the light and into a higher purpose, well, why not?  We are animals, and for survival we need food, water, air, and sex.  Philosophy comes once those needs are met.

Mount Everest

That is the answer to so many things in our house.  The translation is “because I can” or “because it’s there.”  I run because I can.  I have legs, and my legs are strong.  My health is good.  My joints are decent.  I run because I am blessed with a body that is capable of running – maybe not fast, maybe not beautifully, maybe not far.  I will never be an elite athlete, but I can.

I run to know who I am.

Ultimately, this is the answer, the one that is hard to explain when friends and family give me incredulous looks as I babble excitedly about signing up for a new race, or how I’m looking forward to my weekend long run.  They want to know why something uncomfortable, taxing, and that most folks regard as a chore is fun to me.

Here is my answer.  In each breath, in each stride, with each slap of my shoe on the ground, I am me.  I exist in that moment.  Every other stride, every other word, every other choice is behind me.  The things I fear, the things I hope for, the next stride haven’t happened yet.  I don’t know if I will finish the race. I don’t know if I will publish a book or an article.  I don’t know if my children will succeed.  I don’t know how I will live.  But, I know the stride that I take in that moment.  When I run, I am not accountable to anyone other than me. I can’t be anywhere other than in my body.  I can’t be anyone other than myself.

When I run, I know what I can do.  I know where I am.  When I run, I know myself.

 

 

 

The Naked Self

Listening to music sung by a friend this morning started me thinking about creativity.  As children, unless we’re squashed mentally and emotionally, creativity comes naturally.  It’s like running around naked.  Rocks are jewels, the world is a canvas, every rhyming word is fodder for a song, and shirts, pants, and underwear are optional.

Yet, as we grow older, fall from Eden, and find the shame in our nakedness, we also begin to clothe our creativity.  We cover it in structure, form, criticism, and conformity.  Think back through adulthood – when was the last time you (independent of a small child) broke out that cool box of 64 Crayolas?  You know, the one with the sharpener in the back.  When did you last make up a song to hum to yourself, even though you can’t carry a tune?  When did you last grab a pencil and paper and just scrawl whatever your hand wanted – words, pictures, doodles, obscene cartoons?

Creativity gets compartmentalized, assigned to art class, music lessons, writing seminars, or the theater.  In our adult world, we assume that creativity is given only to “artists.”  How often have you said, “I’m just not creative,” or “I wish I were a creative person so that I could do that.”?  I know I’ve heard it more times than I can count.  Yet, assuming that creativity is limited only to those we classify as artists or eccentrics is akin to deciding that only movie stars, nude models, and strippers have bodies.

I don’t think it is a coincidence, this simultaneous constriction and repression of our creative and physical selves.  Creativity is a nakedness of the soul.  We can filter how we present ourselves in our everyday lives, put on social costumes, but when we are truly creative, we can no longer hide the things that distinguish us from others.  When we create and share our creations, we are totally exposed – everything that we are is out there for the world to see and to judge.

That’s where the damage lies in this concealment and conformity that we impose upon our creative souls and upon our bodies.  We fear judgment and we clothe ourselves in it.  And, in doing so, we teach the next generation to loathe both their bodies and their individuality.  Think back – when have you heard these: “Put on some clothes; you’re too old to run around the house in your underwear.”  “That’s a pretty picture, but the sky is blue, not orange.” How many of us have been taught to color inside the lines, or grew up listening to the adults in our lives criticize their own bodies and those of others?

My own upbringing was wonderfully supportive of creativity.  I had more paints, crayons, and modeling clay than any 50 children could want.  Music lessons, journals, easels, you name it.  Comfort with one’s own body was another story.  Most of my ancestors hail from the British Isles.  When your spiritual ancestors are Knox and Calvin, appreciation of the human form isn’t exactly hard-wired into the familial structure.

As I reached adulthood, I made a few abortive attempts to become comfortable in my body, but those quickly fell victim to a combination of insecurity, fashion magazines, and motherhood.  I learned to clothe my body in ways that expressed whoever I was being at the time – to hide any bulges, knobby knees, to minimize my linebacker shoulders.  And, as I reached adulthood, as I fell into the roles of professional and mother, I put away my creativity.  Any outbursts of crafting were carefully and appropriately directed toward projects for the home or my children.  Grownups don’t draw and paint – unless they are artists.  They don’t play instruments – unless they are musicians.  They don’t write – unless they are authors.  Grownups don’t reveal their souls or their bodies.  They wrap themselves in convention, in small talk, in business suits, in politics, in book clubs.

In 2008, in the downslope of my 30s, I realized something.  I can’t be a grownup.  Covering up and burying the parts of myself that make me unique was killing me.  I broke out a journal.  I began to write and then to blog.  I got my easel and oil paints down from the attic. And, about the time I began this blog and first submitted essays for national consumption, I began to run.  I decided to enjoy my body.  To clothe it in ways that make me happy.  And the more I learned to appreciate my body and to become comfortable in it, the more my creative side thrived.

Self-revelation is terrifying and exhilarating.  And yet, I can’t help wondering if we make too big a deal about it.  What are we hiding, exactly?  When we refuse to paint because “I’m not artistic,” or we decline to sing along for fear that someone will hear us and judge, when we agonize in a dressing room and finally put that gorgeous bikini back on the rack, what are we saying about our humanity?  What are we telling ourselves and the world about our gifts, our potential?  And how much are we denying others permission to share of themselves?

One of my proudest moments as a mother came a couple of weeks ago.  I have a 13 year old daughter.  My family history is not rife with examples of secure, confident, healthy adolescence.  I had assumed anxiety, body issues, and insecurity to be part of the territory.  So, it was with great joy one evening during family banter that I heard these words come out of my daughter’s mouth.  “I like my body.”

I wanted to bronze that sentence and give it to her and to every other person on the planet as a gift.  When we like our bodies, when we like ourselves, when we like the creative impulses, the quirks, and the out-of-the-box-ness that make us unique, we are capable of greatness.

We all have the same number of chromosomes. And within those chromosomes we have an amazing array of unique genetic coding.  We are all alike, and we are all absolutely unique.

Nakedness, of body or of soul, takes tremendous courage.  And yet, perhaps, if more of us practiced revealing ourselves, sharing ourselves, less courage would be needed.

So, here you go, I’ll take the plunge.  Not perfect, not a celebrity, not an artist, not “special” – just human.

Last Day Lessons

Today is the last day of school for my kids.  At the closing ceremonies today, Caitlin will stand with her class and sit down as an 8^th grader; Aidan will stand with his and take his seat as part of the new 5^th grade; Sierra will hand a red rose to her 8^th grade buddy, just as her buddy welcomed her at the beginning of the year, and will sit down as a second grader to watch “the buddies” leave the school the same way they entered in 1^st grade – under an arch of flowers.

There is a beautiful symmetry to the closing ceremonies, tradition and predictability.  The ceremony doesn’t so much provide false security and safety as it supports and embraces all that has been learned and all that is still unknown.

May troubles be less

And blessings be more,

And nothing but happiness come to your door.

And may you have luck

Wherever you go

Your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow.

 

May wind be at your back

And sun be overhead

May friends be at your side

Wherever you are led.

 

We sing this song at closing every year – parents, kids, faculty, and staff.  The words blend farewell, see-you-later, and I’ll-always-be-here.  And for all the well-wishing in the song, there remains a sense of journeying into the unknown where there will be troubles (hopefully less) mixed with the blessings (hopefully more), that the wind will blow and that friends will be needed. 

As the kids step away from school today, they won’t stop learning.  None of us will.  Yet, despite the work of teachers, parents, and peers, some lessons must be learned alone.  Here are some of the things I want (and try) to teach my kids, but that I know they have to learn on their own.

• Everything is a choice.  Every choice has a consequence.  Whether you do a thing or leave it undone, you will have to live with the result.
• Use your words.  When you speak from your heart, it has a greater impact than you can possibly realize.
• People who are “mean” are often hurting.  Sometimes if you can find their hurt, they can no longer hurt you.
• Someday you will be most grateful for the teacher you complain about most today.
• Don’t be so quick to brush off that kid who annoys the crap out of you.  You two may someday have more in common than you will with the person who is your “best friend” today.
• The “weirdoes” often become the most interesting adults.
• Everyone has pieces that connect – the punk and the cheerleader, the cowboy and the Goth, the bookworm and the skater – underneath the clothes, hair, and accessories, we have common stories, pains, and desires.  (The Breakfast Club should be mandatory viewing for all 14 year olds.)
• No one can fix your argument with your friend – no one but the two of you.
• Yes, you’re right.  You absolutely will not remember that homework assignment 20 years from now.  However, the discipline muscles that you trained in completing it well and on time will support you throughout your life.
• Yes, you’re right again.  It’s not fair.  Life is neither fair nor easy, but it’s that way for everyone.  So, do you think maybe that means it really is fair after all?
• When someone rejects you or says something cruel, they aren’t exposing your shortcomings, they are revealing their own insecurities or capacities.
• Sometimes you get the most out of the lessons or activities that “suck.”
• Yes, pushups really are important.
• You don’t know yet who you are or what you really like.  You won’t know for years, if ever.  So try everything and learn what you can from it before rejecting it.
• You are your only reliable mirror.  No one else can show you your true self.  Not your classmates, your teachers, your siblings, not even your dad and me.
• You don’t find yourself when you are doing the safe, easy things that you know well.  You find out who you are when things are hard, scary, or just plain crappy.
• The only feet you can stand on and still balance are your own.

Firebrand or Ditz? What's in a label?

Thirty-plus years ago, I had white-blonde hair and glasses.  Today I have platinum-blonde hair and glasses.  The similarities are unsettling, yet I have been many people in between.  Hair color isn’t a big deal.  These days, few of us – even women in our 40s – attempt to pretend that grey-free is “natural.”  Hair is just another element of style; something we change at our whim or to make a point.

When I posted a “poll” on Facebook yesterday, the question seemed frivolous, perhaps a touch narcissistic, but innocuous: Finally getting my hair done; should I stay red or go back to blonde?

 I began coloring my hair between the births of my two oldest children.  Pregnancy (or age) had darkened it to a weird non-color.  My hair was no longer blonde, but it wasn’t brown, red, or grey either.  It was just there.  I had always accepted that someday the blonde would give way to brunette.  Both of my parents, tow-heads as children, developed dark brown hair as adults.  I was willing to accept brunette as my fate, but not mousy.  With an infant already draining (I felt) the remnants of my identity, watching my hair fade into oblivion as well was unacceptable.  So, in a desperate leap for self-confidence, I started coloring my hair – a deep, rich, dramatic auburn.

I’ve been a redhead for the better part of a decade.  Because I have three children and a weird inhibition when it comes to making appointments, the shade has varied from mahogany to strawberry with some stops at brass.  But, red it has been.  Thanks to the complexion passed along by my Scottish ancestors, more people buy me as a redhead than they did as a (natural) blonde.  And I embraced my ginger identity.  A friend once told me, “You dye your hair to match your personality.”   But, what I never told anyone was that I was afraid I was dyeing my personality to match my hair.  Somewhere along the line, I began to link all of my “new” confidence, creativity, and fire to my hair.  Redhead was a costume, a role I was playing, and if I went back to blonde, it would mean a return to the shy, mousy, (in my mind) undesirable wimp that I had been. 

Most of us do this to some degree.  We like to think ourselves above stereotypes and labels, but the labels still lurk under the surface, even if they’re only visible to our subconscious.  There are obvious examples, of course.  Take a six-foot-plus, heavily muscled man.  Now give him tattoos, piercings, shave his head, and dress him in leather.  What happens when you meet him on the street in the evening?  Ok, now take the same guy, cover the ink with an ironed button-down tucked into a pressed pair of slacks.  Let his hair grow to business length.  Take away the piercings, except maybe one small hoop that just says ‘I’m individual enough to be hip.’  How do you react now? 

As soon as I left the beauty salon as a redhead, I noticed that people treated me differently.  Most of my life, those around me, even those dearly loved, treated me with an amused tolerance and protectiveness, bordering on patronization.  As a blonde, my idiosyncrasies weren’t quirky, they were ditzy.  I don’t blame anyone here; I’m absent minded to the point of literally being capable of putting my phone away in the fridge, and my thought patterns have rarely met a straight line they could walk.  Yet, folks who met me after I began dyeing my hair seemed to see a whole different person.  “Don’t mess with her,” I heard.  Casual friends and acquaintances would say admiring things about how confident I am, how I “always seem to have it together.”  And I embraced the new image.

Then, one response to my Facebook poll yesterday took me by surprise and made me wonder – how much do others label us, and how much do we embrace the first hint of a label and make it our own?  Like it or not, stereotypes are safe.  They give us an identity, and consequently, a script.  You don’t have to risk being real if you can hide behind a role.  But here’s the thing that I hadn’t realized.  We aren’t always good actors, and people may interpret our roles very differently than we do.  The remark that threw me was a casually sweet comment from a grade school classmate I haven’t seen in over 20 years.  “I will always remember you as the cute intelligent blonde…”  Thankfully, I was alone in my car when I read that, because what I did next shocked the hell out of me and would have been impossible to explain to anyone else.  I burst into tears.

My sister and I are six years apart.  I had already entered my gangly phase by the time she was a rosy-cheeked toddler.  She has a peaches-and-cream complexion with olive undertones.  I burn between my freckles and call it a tan.  She has long, thick hair that falls in ringlets down her back.  My hair was once referred to by an ex-boyfriend as “fluff.” (For the record, he was an otherwise nice guy, and that wasn’t why we broke up.)  As my sister and I have aged, I still consider her the more beautiful of the two of us, but the differences have grown less dramatic.  However, one trip to the grocery store set our labels in stone as far as I was concerned.  A woman stopped my mother and beamed down at my four-year-old sister.  “What an adorable little girl you have,” she said.  Then she looked at me with my pale, poker-straight hair, anemic-looking skin and coke-bottle glasses.  “And you must be the smart one.”

Well, there it was.  I was the smart one.  I had the report cards overflowing with A’s to prove it.  I sucked at sports and embraced my ineptitude.  Why practice?  I wasn’t athletic; I was the smart one.  As I entered junior high and high school, I watched other girls date and go to dances.  It seemed inevitable and appropriate that no guy would ask me out.  After all, I was the smart one.  And yes, I got great grades that enabled me to follow exactly the academic path I had set for myself, but never once did it occur to me to challenge that label.  It never once occurred to me that I might get better at sports if I actually did something other than read at recess.  It never occurred to me that for the boys to notice me, it would probably have helped if I’d talked to them.  It never occurred to me that to have fun in life, sometimes you have to take chances.  After all, I was the smart one, the shy one, the good girl, not the risk-taker.  I was the slightly ditzy, klutzy nerd who needed others to look after her because she was too quiet, too shy, not strong enough, and couldn’t get her nose out of a book long enough to take care of herself.

Anyone else see the problems with that paragraph?  Interestingly, I didn’t – until yesterday.  In spite of all of the work I’ve done on reaching beyond my comfort zone, embracing my self-confidence, my strength, and accepting myself, I’ve forgotten to do one thing.  I’ve forgotten that the girl that I was is still here, still inside me, and in rejecting and labeling her, I’m eliminating a part of myself.  You see, I am the blonde and the redhead, the shy one and the assertive one, the smart one and the sexy one, the geek and the athlete, the ditz and the capable woman.  I’m all of those things and a lot more that can’t be labeled.

A friend reminded me yesterday that even a rejection of labels is a way of labeling oneself.  He’s right. 

I can’t help wondering if perhaps the trick is not to toss out the people that we have been, discarding them like shed snake skins, but to bring them along with us as we grow, to nurture them, forgive them, and love them.

The Bone Pile and the IDS File

My weekday job involves writing and doing other communications work for an online veterinary community.  One of the longstanding features of this community is the Message Board area where veterinarians post questions, comments, or quandaries regarding cases, clients, life, and almost anything you can think of.  It’s sort of like a giant doctors’ rounds.

Two concepts that pop up in the Message Boards fairly often are ideas that cross over neatly into everyday life.

The Bone Pile -- (Spoiler alert: Do not read the following if you still operate under the belief that “doctors” possess superpowers.)

Whenever someone, often but not always a new graduate, posts about a case that went wrong and about their fear, horror, anxiety, and shame surrounding the case, almost inevitably, a more experienced veterinarian will chime in with this phrase.  “Every practitioner has a bone pile.”

It’s true. Medical practitioners -- whether veterinarians, dentists, or physicians -- are human.  And human beings make mistakes.  We make errors.  We have failures.  Sometimes we fail to communicate.  Sometimes we miss something.  Sometimes we forget something. Sometimes our skills prove to be insufficient.  Sometimes we fail to follow through.  Sometimes fate and physiology are not on our side.  Sometimes we just plain screw up.  These errors, failures, and losses stack one upon the other, forming the “bone pile” of the career.

In life, we all have our bone piles.  All of our failures, mistakes, cruelties, and inadequacies pile in the corners of our lives.  The cutting words spoken to a friend, the failure to listen to our children’s stories, the relationship that we blew entirely, the addictions, the jobs that we’ve lost, the financial setbacks, the burnt pie crusts.  The bone pile isn’t always stocked with T-rex femurs.  Some of the bones are tiny – wispy fish bones that poke and annoy, but are almost invisible.

Most of us don’t like to look at our bone piles.  We stack furniture in front of them, cover them with pretty clothes or expensive electronics, blur the outlines with food, drugs, sex, or alcohol, run from them into the next ill-considered job or relationship.  We call this “moving on.”  And, indeed, one can’t set up residence in the bone pile.  It’s a creepy, hard, and uncomfortable place that lacks the things we need in order to sustain us.  There is no love or nutrition in the bone pile.  It’s haunted by the ghosts of shame and failure.

But, to deny it, is to deny ourselves.

Here’s where medical practitioners do something right.  We speak of the bone pile almost fondly and return to it on occasion, but not with self-flagellation – with a purpose.  You see, doctors (of all stripes and spots) have learned that the purpose of the bone pile is education.  We perform necropsies on our mistakes – carefully dissecting away the layers to discover exactly what happened.  In hospitals, human physicians hold Morbidity and Mortality rounds, in which a case that produced an undesirable outcome is selected and presented in a peer group.  The purpose of these rounds isn’t to shame the doctor in charge.  It isn’t a public flogging.  The M and M is meant to highlight where mistakes occurred and ways of preventing those errors in the future.

We can’t “move on” from our failures or losses until we understand why they happened, and until we learn what we can do to keep the same pattern from repeating.  The bone pile will always grow – that’s the nature of human existence.  Yet, acknowledging the bone pile and its usefulness helps us to grow, to build our experience, and to move away from past errors.  Yes, so that we can make new ones!

If the inevitability of failure depresses you (it depresses all of us a bit, I think), then you may be glad to see the next tool.

The IDS File

The IDS file is usually mentioned in the same message threads that reference the bone pile.  New practitioners often have to be told about this tool, and sometimes experienced practitioners need a reminder to return to the IDS file periodically.  IDS stands for one simple principle: I Don’t Suck.

“I Don’t Suck” is a hard concept for most humans to grasp.  For veterinarians (and I suspect physicians) who tend to be goal-oriented perfectionists, the IDS concept is both incomprehensible and essential.  After all, if we tell ourselves that we are horrible, that we have failed, that we suck, that makes us good people, right?  Self-flagellation is virtuous, isn’t it?  After all, beating ourselves up over a mistake will keep us from making that same mistake again.

Uh, no.

It sounds good.  And we all do it.  We writhe in guilt over the case that went wrong – obsessing, losing sleep, researching until our eyeballs pop out of our heads like Boston Terriers with glaucoma.  We label ourselves – “I did it again.  I can’t be in relationships.  I should just die alone.”  “I can’t believe I said that to her.  I’m a horrible mother.”  The problem with the “I Suck” approach to our humanity is that it doesn’t prevent us from making mistakes, and it doesn’t make us any better in the areas where we’ve failed.  I’d argue that it makes us worse.

This is a hard story to tell.  A number of years ago, I was called out to castrate a horse.  Gelding is a common surgery, and I’d performed hundreds by that time.  The patient was a gorgeous, 6 year old, well-mannered stallion who was only being gelded because he was being moved to a stable that didn’t allow stallions and he wasn’t going to be used as a breeding animal anyway.  The surgery went well.  I never could pinpoint a moment where anything went wrong.  When he stood there was no bleeding beyond the typical few drips.  I watched him in his stall for about 20 minutes to be sure.  I wasn’t on call that night, and I’ll never know what happened exactly, but he began bleeding that evening.  I still don’t fully know the chain of events, but the upshot was that my patient wound up bleeding to death in the trailer on the way to the referral facility.

Realistically, I don’t know if I committed an error in surgery, if the horse did something later on that opened a clot, or if there was an error on the part of one of the other practitioners that saw him that evening.  I never will know.  But, this horse looms large in my bone pile.

Here’s what happened to me.  I excel at self-flagellation.  For months, I spent the drive to work wracked in nausea, my vision blurred so badly I could barely see the road.  I was terrified to do any surgeries.  At all.  The record lurked in my stack of files because I couldn’t face writing it.  I told myself that I could never geld another horse again.

None of this made me a better veterinarian.  Clinical acumen and anxiety-ridden paralysis don’t exactly go hand-in-hand.  Telling myself I sucked only got in the way of the confidence I needed to treat my other patients properly.

Fortunately for me, I had a boss who was more than willing to share the stories of his own bone pile, an office manager who had no intention of coddling me and booked surgeries for me (including geldings) just as she always had, and a technician who blessedly saw the shakes I tried so hard to hide and made certain that she could be there to assist me and who always had the phrase that got me through many a tough case, “I know you can do it.  I have great faith in you.”

And I had my IDS file.  It’s a literal file these days, still hanging in the rack in my home office.  Back then, my IDS file was a collection of cards, notes, and pictures from clients jammed into my cubby slot and briefcase.  Each of those cards said essentially the same thing: “Thank you for caring for our animal.  You are a wonderful veterinarian.  We are grateful for you.”

Human nature is a funny thing.  Even though I said that the story of the gelding disaster was hard to tell, those words were much easier to type than the messages of the IDS file.  We are much more comfortable with our failings than we are with our strengths.  Typing the phrase “you are a wonderful veterinarian” feels awkward and self-aggrandizing.  Even alone in my office in pre-dawn quiet, I feel embarrassed, as though I should duck my head and blush.  Yet, in this same office, I can glance around the room and see at least three mementos belonging to my IDS file.

In our everyday lives, the IDS file may be harder to compile.  I’m learning to build mine from bits and pieces.  Some of it lives in my email folders: kind or funny notes from friends, compliments on articles, thank yous from school or other organizations.  Some of it lives on my refrigerator, dresser, and bulletin boards in the form of art and gifts from my children.  Some of it lives in boxes of old letters (remember those?) and cards.  Some of it lives in the objects about me – my Alice in Wonderland teapot from my husband.  Some of it lives in my mind – in the memories of conversations, small triumphs, and unbelievable joys.  But, I’m learning, on the days when the bone pile seems unmanageably high, to go to the IDS file in whatever form is handy and to find the things that tell me that “I don’t suck” or to find the people who will let me know in their own ways that they “have great faith” in me.

Yes, our pains and failures have to be moved on from, but they must also be learned from.  And we need to learn from and embrace our triumphs and joys to the same degree.  Ultimately, we are the only ones who truly create both our bone piles and our IDS files, and it is up to us to decide how to use them.

What do my kids say?

I worry about what my kids say in public. 

Most parents reading that sentence are probably having one of two reactions.  The honest ones are thinking, “Oh, God, me too!” while those who prefer not to look too closely behind the curtains of their own lives are saying, “Well, then maybe you should raise them better and stop polluting their minds.”

It might come as a surprise to realize that I’m more closely aligning myself with the second set of parents here, but not in the ways you might think.  I don’t worry about the following things:

• Whether my kids have picked up swear words that they might pass along – They have
• Whether my kids will talk about the R rated movies they’ve seen – They will
• Whether they’ll pass along their knowledge of reproductive anatomy or physiology – Oh, well, at least they know the correct terminology.
• Whether they’ll out us for “always going to fast food restaurants for treats” – In my kids’ collective mind, more than once = “always”

I worry more about the value judgments they absorb from us, and how they convey those judgments to the rest of the world.  If there is one lesson in life that I would really like to give them, it is that every person has his own story.  The problem with this is that I also want them to understand that evil and malice do exist in the world and that it is the responsibility of every person to confront injustice.  Reconciling those two ideals becomes, for me, a giant, tangled, who-gave-the-ferret-the-yarn mess.

Mike and I are not perfect, and yeah, I do worry that our children might pick up something that slipped from our mouths in a moment of anger, irritation, irreverence, or sheer stupidity.  But, overall, I think of those things like viruses – something that may cause a transient infection but will be eradicated if the patient is generally healthy.  I believe that when parents try, most of the time, to live and speak the lives they want for their children, that is largely what the children will learn.  But, I worry about the hidden lessons, about the stories that my kids will take away that are right for our family but may not fit another household.

Here, let me give you three examples: two are moments when my children passed along things from our family – with different results, and one where another family’s values intruded on ours.

If you’ve read this blog for a while, then you probably realize that religion holds a somewhat tentative place in our house.  Mike is pretty opposed to organized religion, and while I was confirmed Catholic, I’ve fallen away from the Church whose teachings differ so drastically from my core values.  As a result, our kids have been raised with a pretty sketchy idea of theology.  My general message to them has been that I believe that all religions – throughout history and cultures – are ways of coming toward the same basic truths.  In this, we’ve tried to teach them to respect everyone’s religious beliefs.  Well, that hasn’t always worked.

Caitlin has considered herself a polytheist for several years.  She tends to favor the ancient Greek pantheon, but will consider the influence of the Egyptians.  She has no patience for the notion of one omnipotent and perfect deity.  She prefers the concept of a number of gods, flawed in human ways, and fulfilling different roles.  Since Caitlin is also typically opposed to sharing information with others except on a need to know basis, her beliefs haven’t generally been a problem.  A couple of years ago, however, she came home from school with one of those stories that made me wince.

Somehow she had wound up in a religious debate with a classmate in which she insisted that the Greek gods are real while the classmate, offended, said that the Greek pantheon were myth and that “there is no God but God.”  This was the point where things fractured a bit.  Caitlin, always ready for a good, speculative argument, demanded, “Well, what if the Greek gods are real and your God is imaginary?”

I’m still grateful not to have received an irate parent phone call on that one…

Incident number 2 took place in our car a year or so ago.  Aidan and two of his friends were riding in the back seat of our van while I was driving and trying not to listen to the 3^rd grade boy dialogue.  No one should have to listen to boys who somehow consider themselves out of earshot.   In my attempt to drown out the fart-jokes with internal white noise, I missed the beginning of the conversation.  My attention focused when I heard one of the boys say,

“That’s so gay!”

Aidan didn’t miss a beat.  “What’s wrong with that?”

“Huh?”  The conversation stopped.

“What’s wrong with being gay,” he asked.

Neither boy had an answer, other than a muttered “nothing,” so the world returned to methane-based humor.

My initial, and current, reaction was pride in my son.  I was proud of him for speaking out against a stereotype, and I was proud of him for breaking from the group to look at his own values.  Usually we worry that if one of his buddies said, “Hey, let’s go jump off that bridge,” Aidan would be the first one over the rail.

But, part of me wonders.  Where do we draw the line in speaking out for our beliefs?  Is it more right for my son to assert his value that no way of being should be used as an insult than it is for my daughter’s classmate to try to impose his belief in a single, omnipotent God on her, or her to impose her polytheism on him?  Part of me says, well, of course.  The one is speaking out against injustice while the other shows a disrespect for someone else’s religion.  But, is it ultimately the same thing?

Now, I happen to know the parents of both my son’s friends well, and I’m reasonably confident that none of them would be okay with their offspring using “gay” as a pejorative.  But what if one of those boys had belonged to a family who truly believed homosexuality to be a sin?  I would argue that Aidan was simply asking, “What is wrong with being gay?” and that his intent was to say that it’s not okay to use someone’s identity as a slur, but might not the hypothetical parent view the conversation as an attempt by my son to impose his beliefs on others?  I don’t know.

The third incident may explain some of this further.  While we generally try to provide a healthy balance of foods for our kids – we receive a weekly “farm box” from a local CSA program, we don’t stock fluorescent orange chips except as a special treat maybe twice a year, the bags of Halloween candy last longer than the twelve months between trick-or-treats, and a fruit or vegetable is mandatory in every lunch – Mike and I aren’t fanatic about every ingredient or product that crosses the kitchen threshold.  Sierra may have a whole-grain flour, nut, and raisin bar from Trader Joe’s with a glass of Kefir for breakfast but a Skippy peanut butter and Smuckers strawberry jam on white bread (with the crusts cut off) sandwich in her lunch.  (This week, these are her menu items of choice.)

Most of the time Sierra, like her siblings, packs her own lunch.  And for a first grader, I think she does a damn good job.  Her typical lunch involves the aforementioned sandwich (sometimes she mixes it up and has leftovers in a thermos jar), a pack of dried seaweed, a container of Pirate’s Booty, and a piece of fruit.  Nutrition-wise, I’d have to say, “not bad.”  She’s got her protein, her carbs, multiple vitamins and minerals, and nothing super-processed or with a lot of ingredients whose chemical structures were the stuff of my undergraduate nightmares.

You may have noticed that first graders are not into nuance.  Shade of grey tend to fall into two camps for the seven-year-old: black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or bad-for-you.

Knowing this, I shouldn’t have been surprised when Sierra came home a couple of months ago saying, “We need to buy a different kind of seaweed.”

Ok, not a comment I would have expected to hear in my former, non-kelp-purchasing, kid-free life.  But, what really threw me was the next line.

“M says that the kind of seaweed I bring in my lunch is bad for you.”

My first reaction was a series of three-letter acronyms for expletives.  Seriously?  Some kid had decided that our brand of seaweed is unhealthy?  What sort of freaky universe was this?  Could someone please choke that child with a Twinkie?

I’ll admit it – we did double check the sodium content (the only potential unhealthy thing I could think of).  It was fine.  As I type this, I feel like an idiot.  What kind of adult allows a 7 year old to influence her perception of how she feeds her children?

Well, we’re nearing the end of the school year, but M is still at it.  Last week, Sierra was visibly upset (since this child’s default expression is a huge grin, upset isn’t exactly hard to discern.)  Sure enough, “M still says that my lunches aren’t healthy.  Now he’s saying that my sandwich is bad for me.”

Aidan, from the back seat, made the noise beloved of pre-teen boys – that sort of cough, laugh, vocal fart that indicates a level of derision un-expressible by words.  “What the heck is wrong with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”  I have to give Aidan credit; he may rain a torrent of judgment down on Sierra, but other kids are not allowed to make his little sister feel bad.

“He says that the kind of bread we buy is bad.”

Ok, well, white bread criticism makes a bit more sense to me than seaweed-critique, but I was becoming annoyed.  Biting back a number of comments that would not endear me to the 1^st grade parent body, I dredged up, “Well, anything is bad for you in the wrong amount.  Even water can be bad for you if you drink too much of it.  The important thing is eating a reasonable amount of each kind of food.”

This is our default answer to junk food, why pizza is not a vegetable, whether soda=poison, and any other random nutritional question.

So here is my quandary.  M and his family obviously had nutritional right on their side in the white bread question.  Realistically there isn’t anything healthy about the sandwich bread Sierra eats.  (I’ve learned to pick nutritional battles because I fear that if my children decide that cannibalism is the only reasonable antidote to whole grains, I will be the first menu item.)  However, where is the line between M being informed about healthy foods, M educating his friends, and another family’s way of life trampling all over ours?

And where do my kids draw the line?  When does their belief in freedom of religion collide with someone else’s values?  And where does indignation over a slur become telling someone else how to live?

I don’t really know.  I haven’t answered these questions for myself yet.  And so, I do worry about what my kids pass along.

Consistently Inconsistent

“But I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel.  It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.”

“Yes,” said Harriet, “but I am one of them.  I disconcert myself very much.  I never know what I do feel.”

“I don’t think that matters, provided one doesn’t try to persuade one’s self into inappropriate feelings.”

--Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

 

“Weird.” “Strange.”  “Inconsistent.” “Wishy-washy.” “Cold.” “Heartless.” “Hypocritical.”

How many of us have heard ourselves called these things, either by others, or by the voices rattling around the chambers of our own skulls?  Maybe we got lucky.  Maybe no one ever said the words.  But, I’m betting, most of us have heard the message loud and clear.  There is a certain way of being, a type of person you are supposed to be.  And you aren’t measuring up.  Perhaps the message didn’t come in name calling.  Perhaps it was more insidious.  “That isn’t like you.”  “I know you don’t really feel that way.”  “That’s so out of character for you.” 

Or, maybe the message wasn’t addressed directly to you, but you chose to accept it, to open the envelope, read it, and take it as yours anyway.  Perhaps it came in the form of a criticism of people ‘like’ you – people who eat meat, or shun gluten, or are divorced, or who have multiple children, or have chosen no children; people who home school, who invest in private schools, who send their children to public schools; people who love more than once, people who love differently from the speaker, people between relationships; people who are creative, people who are outgoing, people who are shy…The list of ways of being that we learn are not okay is nearly endless.

And pointless.

No one knows who you are.  Not always.  No one knows who I am.  Sometimes not even me.  Why?  Because, the person I am – the person you are – is an ever shifting tangle of feelings, traits, experiences, and inconsistencies.  Forget layers.  We are kaleidoscopes.  We are shifting fragments of color, light, and shadow.  Our patterns change with movement, with experience, and they change depending on who is holding us.

The person writing this blog right now is not the person who will be on the phone interviewing a source in an hour.  Nor is she the person who went to bed last night.

So, is there a core person in there somewhere?  Yes.  Of course.  I may be shaped by my experiences. Certain traits may leap to the fore depending on my company, the conversation, my level of physical well-being, and a host of other factors.  But, somewhere underneath, below the shifting patterns, I’m still there.

Sadly, most of us get to be pretty good at hiding the core person.  We’re social animals, and we mirror the cues of others for acceptance.  Give me about 15 minutes, and your accent will begin to creep into my voice.  Also, we live in a world that is remarkably intolerant of all things unique or inconsistent.  Have you ever lived in a subdivision with that house on the block?  You know, the one that was painted some color off of the earth-tone section of the wheel?  Or where the owners tinkered with their car in the driveway, even though everyone else on the block parked in the garage?  Do you remember that kid in school?  The one who never listened to the music everyone else was singing?  The one who talked about weird books and didn’t have a clue about the hottest TV shows?

Even societies that pride themselves on iconoclasm expect a certain level of conformity.  Try living in certain “liberal” communities as someone who eats meat, refuses to attempt to bake gluten-free anything, and lets the kids watch Die Hard as a Christmas movie.  No one will say it, not outright, but it is easy to get a sense that something about your way of being is not okay.

When it comes to feelings things get even more tricky.  How many of us try to talk ourselves into the things we should feel?  How often do we deny our own points of inconsistency – with society or with ourselves?  Okay, I’m coming out of the inconsistent closet here.  Feel free to add your own contradictions, quirks, foibles, etc. in the comments.  Please.

• I have devoted my adult life to the preservation of animal welfare, but I eat meat and believe in the humane slaughter of horses.
• I have three children whom I adore, feel passionate about child development, and have absolutely no interest in kids I don’t know.
• I don’t really find newborn babies adorable.
• I would be fine with kicking our TV to the curb, but I’m the first one to turn it on after the kids go to bed.
• I state a preference for being alone, yet I’m the one who usually suggests hosting a party.
• I’m inherently shy, but refuse to dress in a way that lets me fade into the background.
• I like to climb trees, dig in the dirt, and wear stilettos.
• I believe in a divine power, but chances are I won’t discuss it with you, nor am I comfortable hearing about your beliefs – most of the time.
• I hate Hallmark cards, but their commercials make me cry.
• I consider myself the equal of any man, almost any time, but I still like it when a guy makes me feel delicate.
• I’m big on balanced nutrition and seasonal produce, but I won’t take vitamin supplements and I think most “natural” remedies are for suckers.  However, I only buy ginger to offset nausea or motion sickness.

The list could go on for pages, and I’m sure anyone who knows me well can think of two or three or fifteen points to add to the list.  However, the point isn’t the individual paradoxes.  The point is learning to accept what we really do feel.  And perhaps, learning to be a bit more accepting of those things in others which strike us as “off.”

Introverts Among You

Today I’d like to tell you a story of four people, two girls and two women.  Like all stories, this one speaks of more than the characters or events around them.  But, it speaks quietly, and you’ll only hear it if you listen.

The first girl grew up in an era of Saturday morning cartoons, of city-sponsored sports leagues, and of herds of children roaming the suburban plains.  She was tall and usually thin for her age.  She wore coke bottle glasses and usually seemed to be looking somewhere else – somewhere that didn’t exist.  She was the girl who was always picked last in PE, for any sport, even though she wasn’t nearly the worst at some, and was even pretty good at things like floor hockey.  She enjoyed sleepovers with one or two friends, but at a slumber party, she would crawl deep into her sleeping bag with her pillow over her head, wishing for a light to read by, and praying that the ghost stories would stop.  Whenever the teacher assigned a group project, she would sit quietly, barely participating, even though her report card held more A’s than anyone else’s.  She didn’t hear her classmates make the wrong choices or assumptions.  She didn’t hear whether they had good ideas.  She couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in her own ears.

By all accounts, the red-haired woman was fearless.  Tall and athletic, she could handle just about any horse, and would go toe-to-toe with the most cantankerous rancher.  “She’s pretty tough.”  “You wouldn’t want to get in her way,” people said.  She organized educational seminars for horse owners, spoke to groups, and quickly became the public face for her clinic.

The second woman slunk into parties behind her husband, even though, in heels, she was several inches taller than he.  Often low cut, always form-fitting, never frumpy, her clothes didn’t match her demeanor.  You’d find her standing in a corner, clutching a drink, eyes watching the room, like a gazelle at a watering hole, waiting for someone to notice her.   Eventually she would peel away from the wall, smile, and find a group of one or two sympathetic souls where she would stand at the edge, waiting for someone to let her in.  She would talk and laugh with the others, maybe even share a story or two, but only in response to a direct question.  She never asked questions of anyone else.  She knew it made her look cold, like she didn’t care, but she didn’t want to pry, to ask something that might make it look like she wanted them to reveal too much.  She figured that if someone wanted her to know something, they would tell her.  After a couple of hours, she would grow quiet again, excuse herself to the bathroom, mention to her husband that it was getting late and maybe they should be leaving soon, or that she was so sorry but she was starting to get a headache.

The second girl is, like the first, tall and wiry, though more developed at the same age.  She has a solemn face that can light into a dimpled grin.  She was early to talk, and can wax eloquent on subjects that interest her, though the one word used by every teacher at the school is “quiet.”  Sometimes they add “responsible” and “kind” and “maybe a little shy.”  “She’s not like her brother, is she?” they ask.  No, she isn’t.  Her brother bounds through life, never meeting a stranger.  Social isolation, even to do homework alone in his room, is physically painful for him.  The girl, on the other hand, keeps her bedroom like a cave, door closed and curtains drawn.  She gets good grades, and will sometimes surprise her teachers and peers with her passion on certain subjects, but most of the time, she complains that the teacher never notices her, and that the other girls never include her.  She doesn’t try to join the groups or find areas of common interest.  She waits, at the edges of a group, waiting to be invited.  Outsiders are surprised when they see how fearless she is, climbing to the highest branches of a tree, or when they see her burly, outgoing brother defer to her instantly, or when, in a low voice, she rebukes or corrects a classmate and the other child listens.  Parents and teachers comment in amazed voices at her performance after she holds the stage in a class play.  They don’t see her as a performer, or as a leader.  Because she stays at the edges, they assume she is passive, a follower.  They don’t see the steel.

Maybe you’ve guessed it by now.  The first girl and the two women are me.  The second girl is my oldest daughter.  We are introverts.  Yes, even the red-headed veterinarian.  There are more of us out there.  In her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain writes that one third to one half of the population are introverts.  Yet, we live in a world that treats the introvert as an exception, an anomaly, or – most damaging – and oddball.

Cain does a far better job than I ever could of explaining the world of the introvert.  Her book is impeccably researched, readable, and filled with insights that brought me to tears more than once.  In fact, I probably could have met the needs of this blog post by simply typing – “Read this book.”  Unfortunately, though, the people most likely to read Quiet are the introverts.  And while it is a tremendous gift to read a book that helps you to understand that the things that you have always thought made you “not okay” are actually normal, introverts largely know who we are.  Introspection is in our nature, wired so deeply into us that an introvert will often look confused when someone remarks on their level of self-awareness.  Like most people, introverts tend to assume that there is nothing particularly different about our way of thinking.

This is where everyone needs to read Quiet.  While we may understand, intellectually, that everyone’s brain works differently, and that our experience may not be that of someone else, we live in a world that wants to whittle every peg until it fits in the same sized hole.

You would think that for an introvert, raising an introverted child would be the easiest thing in the world.  You’d be wrong. 

The girl with the glasses got contact lenses, grew up, found people to whom she could relate, and learned to put on the superhero costume of an outgoing expert in professional settings.  But, as a mother, she still sees the girl standing at the edges of the playground as a failure.  She wishes that the awkward adolescent with the pale blonde hair had figured out earlier that she was just as entitled to be a part of the group as anyone else.  She wishes that she had learned to fake enthusiasm, to master the code of “small talk”.  She feels that she would have escaped a lot of pain if she’d learned these things when she was younger.  She believes the message of her childhood and of the adult world, that to be quiet is to be passive, to prefer solitude is to be anti-social, to have a low tolerance for noise and crowds is to be shy.  She believes, in short, that there is something “wrong” with her.

She sees her daughter – bright, eloquent, confident, and fearless at home or with one or two friends – hover at the edges of her peer group, wandering off with a book while the rest of the class chats or plays basketball.  She sees this, and the little girl inside the woman cringes.  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ the voice in her head chides.  ‘She’s turning out just like you.  You have to help her come out of her shell.  You have to help her be more a part of the group.  If she’d just join in more, they’d see how amazing she is.’  And so, in the name of tough love, I have pushed my daughter to join clubs or teams.  Pushed her -- with the tight, angry voice that should tell me that this is about my fears and not about her at all – to sit with and practice with, and be a part of her basketball team rather than taking a few moments before the game to sit alone with her book.  I have brought home pamphlets for theater groups, pushed her into activities because, “You know you’ll enjoy it once you get there, and you can’t stay home all the time.”  Pushed her because I know that the real world eats introverts for lunch.

Fortunately, my daughter is far more stubborn and much less docile than I was as a child.  While I was a shy introvert, living in fear of making waves or disappointing anyone, or – heaven forbid! – being “bad,” she knows exactly who she is, and has no problem being that person.  What she does have a problem with, is people expecting her to be someone other than who she is.  She honestly does not understand why girls who chatter about makeup and clothes, who bounce and flirt, are considered “bright” or “leaders.”  She doesn’t see why the outgoing should get the prime roles in class plays even though they sometime have trouble memorizing their lines.  She doesn’t understand why they are picked as group leaders, or why when group assignments are made, she is always placed with the kids who have trouble focusing or who don’t care about the assignment.  In her head, thought is as important as action or words, and she doesn’t see why people should be expected to cluster in pods or all do the same thing.

She is right.  And she’s wrong – I may need to buy her a book on understanding extroverts.  At almost 13, she doesn’t understand that people can’t know your gifts if you never show them.  She doesn’t see that it is impossible for her teachers or peers to know the depth of her knowledge or enthusiasm if she never lets any of it out.

But, she has grasped something that it takes many introverts decades to realize.  She understands that she functions best alone or with one or two other people.  She knows that when large groups begin talking, particularly all at once, her brain shuts down – overwhelmed by the stimulation.  She already can verbalize the experience, common to introverts and unknown to most extroverts, of being drained by large groups, of feeling as though your energy is being sucked into the room and converted into all of that bubbling enthusiasm.  She knows that she needs to be alone sometimes, that her only way to be herself is to wander away with a book.  And she’s sick and tired of living in a world where the message is clear: ‘there’s something wrong with that.’

She loses by not making some adaptations to the social order of her class, yes.  But the world also loses by not accepting the gifts of introverts when offered. 

I have a bumper sticker, given by a friend who knows me well.  It says:

Introvert*

*insufficient energy for small talk

Most introverts have had the following experience.  (I used to think it was just me.)  We find ourselves in a conversation with someone who seems sympathetic.  We relax just enough.  The other person asks us a question that happens to be about something interesting to us.  We answer.  In depth.  In detail.  In lots of detail.  This is a thing to which we have devoted hours of thought and or research.  The other person looks interested, for a minute or two, but then we notice something.  We notice the eyes glazing over, the scanning of the room.  We see it coming.  Sure enough, the other person excuses him or herself and wanders away.

Both parties have lost.  The introvert has just received yet another message that his or her way of being is not okay.  And the extrovert has missed out on the insights and the opportunity for a deeper conversation.  Yet, this happens all the time: at schools, in the workplace, at parties.  We are living in a ten-second soundbite world that is not overly sympathetic to the documentary.  And we all lose.

Okay, I’ve taken up a lot of your time with this post, and the introvert in me is squirming at my self-indulgence, but if you are still here, this video is from a TED talk given by Susan Cain.  Listen.  There are introverts among you.  

Caraway Seeds and Room for Change

I like caraway seeds.

Today, on a break from work, in the midst of grabbing a much needed latte and trying to arrange a telephone interview with a veterinary idol for a magazine article, I dashed into Noah’s Bagels to grab a sandwich to take back to the office for lunch.  I’m trying to get back to my ideal weight, and so attempting some moderation food-wise, and the Avocado BLT on a Bagel Thin sounded good.  “What flavor bagel,” the clerk asked.  “Oh, an Everything Bagel,” I answered.  Everything is good, right?  More is better?

A couple of hours later, I opened my sandwich and grimaced.  I hadn’t realized that the Everything Bagel had caraway seeds. I hate caraway.  I’ve always hated caraway.  As I child, I had ongoing battles with rye bread and my grandmother’s sauerkraut.  Caraway seeds are icky.

I was hungry.  Stomach growling, holes being gnawed in the lining, hungry.  I bit into the sandwich and cringed at the familiar flavor.  Then something shifted.  As I took another bite, I let go of the past.  I became aware of the salt crystals on the chewy surface of the bagel, the licorice-like tang of the caraway seeds, the butter of the avocado.  I chewed, thought, rolled the thought around my tongue, and chewed some more. 

I like caraway seeds. 

In that moment of letting go, of relinquishing what I “know” about what I want and what I like, I freed myself to experience the sensation of tasting the caraway seed for the first time.  And suddenly, I possessed the potential to be a new me.

This isn’t about a seed, of course, or even about a bagel.

We think we know ourselves.  We believe that we know what drives us.  What we like, what we fear, what makes us who we are.

But what happens if we let go of all of that -- for a moment, in a conversation, during a meal, in a relationship?  What happens if we surrender our own history to the past?  What happens if we open ourselves to the possibility that we have grown, that we are no longer the person who feared a situation or hated a flavor?  What happens if we allow the moment to exist on its own without pre-conceptions?

Try it sometime.  It’s a rush.

Failure as Fertilizer

Your child is a failure.  My children are failures.  You are a failure.  I am a failure.

Ok, don’t start throwing things yet.  Our society vastly underrates the value of failure.  We all fail.  Most of us fail daily: at school, at work, in art, in the kitchen, at play, and in our relationships.  We are all failures.  We need our failures.

Just as Edison needed his myriad ways not to make a light-bulb in order to achieve success, we need our failures in order to learn.  We need our failures in order to learn what doesn’t work and by extension what does.  We need our failures in order to learn how to problem solve.  We need our failures in order to learn to adapt.  We need our failures in order to learn to persist.  We need our failures in order to grow.

Sunday was diorama drama day in our house.  As part of a 4^th grade book report, Aidan was making a diorama depicting the California Gold Rush.  His original plan had involved making a figure of a miner panning for gold out of modeling clay.  Now, while I did buy him some of the little pine trees (they were adorable; how could I resist?), we do not generally allow our kids to have pre-fab presentation kits.  You want to build something?  You find the materials and you build it.  You want an animal?  Make one – needle-felt it, sculpt it, whatever.  Do it yourself.

Aidan had drawn a miner with a pickaxe in the background, painted the riverbed, and figured out how to affix the trees.  Now he was ready for his figurine. 

Scene 1: Clay blob.  The modeling clay was too wobbly to support a kneeling figurine.

Scene 2: Wire skeleton.  He decided that his guy needed a skeleton.  So, Aidan went to the garage, found the reel of fencing wire, borrowed the wire cutters and got to work.  He bent the wire pieces into the shapes of kneeling legs, a torso, arms, and head.  He then pressed the clay muscle and bones onto the skeleton.

Scene 3: Tears.  Of the words parents hate to hear coming from a work area, “THIS IS STUPID!” has to top the list.  The miner (which I actually thought was much better than anything I could have done at that age) was not to scale.  He dwarfed the pine trees; ok, they looked like weeds.  Mike and I tried the “the trees are in the distance” approach, but Aidan wasn’t buying it. 

I take back my earlier statement.  Where school projects are concerned, there is another set of words that I dread even more than the above.  “Several (yes, my nine-year old talks like this) other people have turned in their dioramas already.  And they were PERFECT!  Mine looks HORRIBLE!” Hugging my son and growling under my breath, I told Aidan, “Well, I don’t think it’s bad, but it’s your project, so do what you need to to make it look the way you want” and went back to my office.

 

Scene 4: Facebook status update. 

A plaintive plea to other grade school parents: please, please don't do your child's projects for them. Don't even "help" substantially. Help them figure out how they want to do it. Let them struggle a bit. Help them problem solve, but don't do the construction. It isn't fair to those children whose "mean" parents feel that school projects are for children to do. My kid should not have to compare his work to that of 30, 40, or 50 year olds. Thank you. That is all.

Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the other “perfect” dioramas, so I have no idea what, if any, parental input they received.  However, I have seen plenty of school projects over the years that were not completed solely, primarily, or perhaps even in part by children.  As a parent, the clean-edged, polished display that is obviously beyond the capability of an elementary school child makes me grit my teeth.  It’s hard enough raising kids with perfectionist tendencies without knowing that they are comparing their efforts to work that was not done by their peers.

But, there is another aspect to parental project participation that makes me sad.  The children whose parents “help” by doing all or most of the cutting, gluing, design, etc. are losing out.  They are being denied the gift of failure.

We all need to screw up.  We need to plan something and watch it fall down or crumble to bits.  We need to make a figurine that isn’t to scale.  We need to put forth an effort that was less than our best and face the consequences – even if those consequences are a bad report or a failed grade.  We need the gift of our mistakes – they are the fertilizer of our lives.  (Don’t make me use the obvious excrement metaphor.)

How many of us have crossed the waters of adulthood without foundering?  Speaking personally, I have: been fired from my first professional job; lost a house; been laid-off another job, hurt and been hurt by the ones I love; and made more mistakes than I care to contemplate.  But, each failure has made me stronger, braver, more creative, and more loving. 

How have I been able to grow from my failures?  I have a memory of cross-country skiing with my family.  I must have been about ten years old – about Aidan’s age.  Descending hills on narrow skis that are longer than you are tall is tricky at any age, and given that I had trouble walking without falling down, my rear was no stranger to the snow.  Halfway down one hill, I took a particularly spectacular tumble.  I was on the steep edge of the hillside, legs twisted, skis pointed in opposite directions and one pole out of reach downhill. 

I was cold, wet, bruised of butt and of ego, and my legs ached.  In tears, I asked my parents to come pull me up.  They came and stood near me, but didn’t extend a hand.

“Help me up!”

My dad handed me my wayward pole.

“I can’t get up.  Help me.”

“You can do it yourself.  Get your skis straightened out and pointed across the hill.”

“I can’t do it.  I need help.”

“You’re big enough to do it yourself. You know how.”

“I can’t.  I’ll fall.”  I pushed myself halfway up and slid partway down the hill, skis still in a knot.

“You aren’t trying.  Get your skis straight and parallel.  Use your poles.”

“I need help.”

“Someday you’ll fall and we won’t be around to help you up.  You need to learn to do it yourself.”

 

Later, there was hot chocolate, and I’m sure that in my mind at the time, that was the only thing that redeemed my parents from utter cruelty.  But, as an adult, I don’t remember the hot cocoa.  I only remember the gift of that last sentence.  As a parent, I now know the struggles that my parents didn’t show me as they stood there.  I know how hard it was for them to let me try, and fail, and not rescue me.

I wrote a guest blog last week about “saving” others.  One of the points I made was that rescuing diminishes the rescued.  Every time we refuse to let someone fail or to dig themselves out of failure, we tell them that we believe them incompetent.

Sometimes I hear parents say that they don’t want their children to feel overwhelmed or bad about their mistakes.  I find myself sometimes arguing the opposite to teachers.  Please, please challenge my children.  Please push them.  Please call them on their sloppy work, on their failures.   Please tell them that they are better than that.  Please let them know that you believe that their best efforts, uneven edges and all, are the work you expect from them – and then let them know that you expect better next time.

Life doesn’t get easier as we get older.  The scary, frustrating, and challenging things that attack us from the outside and from within only get bigger and darker.  Like everything, overcoming adversity takes practice.  Facing failure is like the metaphor of the man lifting the calf every day from the moment of its birth.   Eventually, he is still able to lift the grown cow.  If we allow our children to cope in small ways with the frustrating and scary, perhaps, someday they will have the tools to lift the whole thing.

Circling back to school and teaching; this is the best description I have ever seen of the value of a teacher:

  

Why Dragons Don't Make Good Pets

playgroundsMichaelmas was last week.  For a more in-depth review of this somewhat obscure holiday and its meaning in the Waldorf schools, check out this post from last year.  Short version: on (or near) September 29, the feast of St. Michael, Waldorf schools host a Michaelmas pageant which tells the story of St. George and the Dragon.  At our school for the past two years – and much to the disgust of my children – St. George has tamed rather than, slain the dragon.  I think that my children are disappointed in the dragon for failing to live up to their expectation.  They prefer epic battles and generally feel that evil shouldn’t just roll over like a remorseful puppy.

St Michael and the Dragon -- Aidan Minamiji, age 9

Now, I haven’t talked to any of the faculty about this, so I don’t have any idea why the dragon has had a change of heart or why St. George is suddenly imitating Caesar Milan, but I know that my kids, at least, view the shift as part of a larger adult conspiracy to protect children from that which is scary and violent, and they aren’t happy about it.  And, I can’t say that I blame them…

Like I said, I don’t know anything about the circumstances of the school play, but I do know that elsewhere, there seems to be a trend toward protecting our children from things that are violent, unsettling, complicated, frightening, challenging, or dangerous.   Yet, strangely, while we are dumbing down fairytales so that the step-sisters turn nice in the sequel (Don’t get me started on Cinderella II), complaining about “darkness” in young adult literature, and making playgrounds so safe that they are one step up from padded cells for challenge-value, kids spend huge amounts of time indoors, playing first-person shooter games.  Huh?

I would submit that much of this child-protective movement speaks more to the fears of adults than it does to the risk of frightening children.  We all have different methods of coping with the fears that live deepest within us.  Certain fears also seem to make some of the biggest dragons: relationship/rejection, children, and status/finance issues tend to be such huge triggers that we aren’t even aware of the weird ways in which we face these dragons until the fire has scorched our eyebrows.  Continuing with our dragon metaphor, these are some of the methods I see (and have used, myself):

• Human Sacrifice – In the story, the villagers are offering up a maiden to the dragon in hopes of appeasing it when St. George rides in to the rescue.  This always seemed like a self-defeating plot point to me.  Who really thinks that one skinny girl is going to fill an entire dragon?  At best, it seems like she’d just be an appetizer for the village main-course.  Yet, we do this same thing every day.  And usually, the humans we sacrifice are ourselves.  Do any of these sound familiar?
  • “I’m going to give up my yoga classes; they’re taking too much time away from my family.” Translation: My spouse/partner doesn’t like me spending evenings out, and I’m afraid I will lose him/her, but I don’t want to discuss it.
  • “I’d like to have dinner, but I need to go on my child’s class trip.  She isn’t ready to be away from home yet.”  Translation: I am terrified that something may happen to my child if I am not there.  I am terrified that he/she may be frightened or homesick and need me.  I am terrified that he/she won’t need me.
  • “I can’t make the soccer game this weekend.  We have a big project at work and I can’t take the time away.” Translation: I need to be perceived as indispensible to the project.  I’m also afraid that I may not actually be necessary every minute.
  • Pitchforks, Torches, Mob – Sometimes, we tell ourselves that we aren’t afraid of the dragon, that we are angry, and righteous (or at least justified) in our anger.  We rally the village, stir up the countryside, and attack the dragon.  Unfortunately, since the attack is generally chaotic, and often not directed at the real problem, it usually fails and everyone limps home with battle scars.  For real world examples, think of “flame wars” in internet chat rooms; snarky, passive-aggressive social media status posts, the clique gossip that should have stayed in high school but somehow managed to cling to the heels of adulthood for many of us; workplace alliances and backstabbing – the list goes on.  No one wins – except the dragon.
  • Dragon Whisperer – This may be the trickiest fear-related coping mechanism to understand, probably because it seems the most sane.  Instead of running from or battling our dragons, we take them home, and train them.  Unfortunately, we often simply wind up nurturing the dragon, and in the safety of our homes, and with unlimited food, it grows fat and becomes all too real.  This brings me to the title of this post Dragons Don’t Make Good Pets.  Often, in trying to manage our fears, to prevent the circumstances that we most dread, we create those very circumstances.  Again, anything here sound familiar?
    • We fear that our spouse will stray.  Do we discuss our fears?  Do we bring the hidden insecurities out into the light?  Often no, we manage schedules, micromanage emotional interactions, even monitor our partner’s communications.  Why?  Because some part of us thinks that we can control the dragon.  And if we have control, the thing we fear won’t happen.  Well, we’ve all seen this made-for-TV movie…
    • We fear that our children won’t succeed in life.  Again, control becomes the means of coping with the dragon.  We arrange activities, sports, tutoring, lessons.  We check homework, draft schedules, and micromanage until two things happen:
      • Our children have no ability to discipline themselves.
      • Any joy they may have once taken in the task has been destroyed.
      • (For the record, I’m currently undergoing a reformation on this point.  My daughter and I have a pact this year – as long as she gives her schoolwork her best effort, I will give staying off her back my best effort.  So far so good, by all reports, she is much more focused in class.)
• We fear that harm may come to our children.  They may be physically injured.  They may experience rejection.  They may get their hearts broken.  They may face failure.  Guess what?  They will.  This is one of the hardest dragons to face: the knowledge that we cannot protect our children from life.  Nor should we.  I cringe every time I hear an adult say that they don’t want children to feel “disappointed” or to be “frightened” or to risk getting hurt.  If our children do not face these risks and learn to handle the fairly small wounds of childhood, what kind of adults will they become?
• Being St. George – This is the most difficult and most lonely way of handling the dragon.  And ultimately, I believe, is the only way that will work.  Gather the light from within and without, let that light of honesty, acceptance, and self-worth shine through oneself, and with one’s own strength and sword, ride out to face the dragon – seeing the beast for what it is, and slaying it (or, at least banishing it back to its cave.)

 

 

 

Finding the Thread -- Fear in the News

Readers of this blog may have noticed that I’ve never attempted the sort of “weekly round-up” posts seen in other, more focused blogs.  This is a technique that works great for blogs that cover one topic or niche, but since this blog is essentially a reflection of my brain (scattered), I’ve generally felt that trying to tie up bits of news from the week that stuck out for me would be like trying to string a bunch of random beads into a pattern.

Yet, there are weeks when certain news items stick to the brain, and it seems as though there should be a thread that joins them.  Perhaps this is simply a reflection of my current thoughts, but it seems as though I may have found a thread for the events and issues that have stood out for me this week.

Here are my “beads” of news, in no particular order.

1. The debt ceiling talks collapsed (again.) In other words, the president and Congress began tattling on each other and John Boehner took his ball and went home.
2. Though we are having a mild summer in CA, worry about friends, family, and colleagues has me following the heat wave in the Midwest and East.
3. The bombing and shooting tragedy in Norway is made even more horrific by the age of so many of the victims and the choice of disguise of the murderer.
4. A breastfeeding doll popular in Europe causes some controversy in the U.S.
5. School board members decide to un-ban a book after they actually read it.
6. A study indicates that modern playground safety modifications may actually be detrimental to children.

There they are, snippets of world events from catastrophic to idiotic.  What is the thread that ties these things together?  Here’s a clue.  When I took the above picture this morning, I was afraid to use it.  The beads are kind of blurry, and the whole photo is shadowed weirdly.  Then it hit me – those are the aspects that make the picture perfect for this post.  My beads, these bits of news, stood out from the media storm randomly and kind of blurry.  But, the whole picture is tainted by something unpleasant and shadowy.  Fear.

Yesterday, I posted about fear on the personal level.  Today, societal fear seems to be the thread that connects these issues – at least in my mind. 

Wait.  What about the heat wave? Fear didn’t cause summer heat.  Yeah, I hear you.  Inserting the heat wave into the list reminds me of the old Sesame Street game, “Which of these things is not like the others?”

The thread of fear is pretty obviously strung through some of these events.  This morning, I found it interesting to note that NPR, not generally an alarmist news outlet, used the words “fear” and “afraid” in the blog post on the debt-ceiling crisis.  Should the public be afraid?  Probably.  The potential global economic impact of a failure to raise the debt-ceiling is pretty awful.  But, what struck me is how fear is affecting the process.  Why do politicians lock into a “my way or the highway” mindset?  Fear.  For humans, the loss of ability to compromise, to be flexible, indicates a loss of our higher brain functions.  The more we are driven by fear (fear of losing power, fear of losing face, fear of losing money, elections, etc) the more rigid we become.  Posturing to show “strength” is the human equivalent of puffing up our feathers or spines to look bigger to the predator.

“Terror” was prominent in the headlines referencing the bombing and shooting in Norway.  An apt adjective, for sure.  While the bombing in Oslo is horrific enough, I can’t imagine anything more terrifying than what the kids at that summer camp must have endured.  The thought of them seeing someone they believed to be a police officer – a person sent to keep them safe—open fire on them is nauseating.  But here, fear seems to be not only the result of the murderer’s actions, but the cause as well.  News reports refer to the suspect as an extremist who believes that immigration, multi-culturalism, and particularly Islam are destroying Norway.  A man acting from fear creates fear.

Now we drop into the seemingly banal.  However, in my mind at least, fear breeds fear.  The more we close our minds, bodies, and hearts, in self-protection, the more we make room for the truly dark things. 

Playgrounds – remember metal slides?  Do you remember the really tall ones, with their tight corkscrews and rickety ladders?  Do you remember how the metal burned your legs below the hem of your shorts on a summer day?  Do you remember the metal merry-go-rounds?  Do you remember trying to keep your legs moving as fast as those of the older kids, until you screwed up the courage for that jump and then landed on the spinning platform?  Do you remember the pit of fear in your stomach just before you took that leap?  My kids won’t.  And if you are a member of my generation or those that follow, neither will your kids.  As parents, we have clamored for freedom from fear for our children.  We have smoothed the edges, lowered the peaks, and softened the landings for our kids.  We are one step away from bubble-wrapping them into incompetence.  And, in our desire to protect our children from the scrapes and fractures of life, we have taught them that life is to be feared.  We are creating adults who will not have the skills to stand against the darkness of fear.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie is on my to-read list, so I’ll admit that I am not yet qualified to speak intelligently about it.  (There are those who would say that I’m not qualified to speak intelligently about a number of things, but why let fear stop me?)  However, I was intrigued by the news that the Richland, WA school board had reversed a decision to ban Mr. Alexie’s book after two of the members originally voting for the ban decided to actually read the book.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tends to spark controversy due to the “dark” nature of its subject matter.  The semi-autobiographical story of a boy raised in poverty on a Native American reservation attending a mostly-white high school deals with themes that middle class parents often fear exposing their children to.  The book was one of those listed in the recent rant against YA fiction in the Wall Street Journal.  I’ve already written my thoughts on the article and its implications, but for anyone uncertain as to my views on book banning, here they are:

1. If you don’t want your kids to read a book, fine, tell them.  However, your fears do not get to dictate what books my children can find in their bookstore, classroom, or library.
2. If you fear a book, read it.  Don’t make judgments based on hearsay and supposition.  Know what you fear.
3. The most famous book censor in history was Hitler.  Talk about a guy with fear issues.

I have to applaud the members of the Richland school board for having the courage to revisit their decision, and to look societal fears in the face.  Good job, guys!

Now we move on to what is, to me, the weirdest item on the list.  Sure, you say: “Breastfeeding doll, pretty darn weird.”  Nope, don’t misunderstand me.  I don’t think the doll is weird at all.  I think it’s weird to object to a doll that gives children a more accurate picture of the way babies are meant to be fed.  I think it’s weird that we began by making dolls that nursed out of plastic bottles.  I think it’s weird that modern society (and particularly American society) has such a dysfunctional, fear-based relationship with the bodily function that defines us as mammals.  What sort of self-loathing drives us to reject a fundamental aspect of our humanity?

My youngest child is now six, but I’ve never really gotten over some of the strange incidents that stuck out over a collective 6-7 years of breastfeeding my children.  (The breastfeeding resume extends over three kids; do the math before you freak out.) 

• My mom urging me to “go to the ladies’ lounge” to nurse Caitlin while we were in a mall restaurant.  “And do what,” I asked.  “Sit on the sink counter?”  Let’s face it, modern restrooms distinctly lack a space for actual “rest.”  But, more critically, I never could understand the logic behind socially isolating a woman who was feeding her baby the way it was meant to be fed.  No one would tell a woman with a bottle to go into seclusion to feed her infant.  I like intelligent lunchtime discourse.  Babies may be cute, but they are not great conversationalists.
• The same elderly women in a shopping mall who had cooed over Caitlin in her stroller giving me dirty looks a short while later as I sat on one of the padded benches nursing her.  For the record no “private parts” of my anatomy were on public display.  But, judging by the reactions of these women, you’d have thought I was doing a pole dance in a nursery school.
• The confused and paranoid responses of TSA agents to my breastpump as I prepared to board a flight to a conference.  Really, what’s the tricky concept here?  How are basic medical devices not a part of their training?
• The couple who pulled back the folds of my baby sling to see the “adorable baby” and who recoiled with horror as they realized that “the adorable baby” was having lunch while I pushed my cart through Costco.  Now, I think they should have been embarrassed for assuming that it was okay to touch me or anything on my person without my permission.  However, I wasn’t the least embarrassed about feeding my kid.   A screaming baby in the middle of a big-box store would have been more disturbing to me.

Our societal views on gender, sexuality, and reproduction are so fear-ridden as to be nearly completely dysfunctional.  It’s amazing that the American middle-class hasn’t become an endangered species.  Why do we refuse to talk to our children about reproduction until they are so deeply confused by their hormones that they are incapable of listening?  Why do we assign euphemisms to some body parts but not others?  How confusing must it be for children to hear a penis called “pee-pee” or “wiener”, but to know that an elbow is always an elbow?  Why do we permit our children to watch cartoons and play with toys that emphasize costumes sexualizing the female breast, but freak out at the concept of a doll who uses the breast for its intended purpose?

Fear.  Fear drives us.  Fear limits us.  Fear was meant to help us survive in a harsh, unpredictable natural world.   When the lion leaps from the grass, fear is a pretty good response.  This brings me to the last, and rather oddly shaped, bead.  How does extreme summer heat fit onto our fear necklace?

Two thoughts come to mind here:

1. Fear for the safety of the people and animals affected by abnormal or extreme climate conditions.  This is probably a ‘healthy’ fear as long as it doesn’t become incapacitating.  Fear of natural disaster can inspire us to plan and prepare; concern for others can pull us out of ourselves into a greater good.
2. Climate change.  The science is solid.  Climate change is real.  We are experiencing its effects, and will continue to do so.  Without action, we could really have something to fear.  However, an issue of fact continues to be a subject for debate, with substantial numbers of people denying the evidence.  Why?  Fear.  Humans don’t like to contemplate a reality that forces change.  We fear the unknown.  We fear loss of comfort, jobs, convenience.  We fear change.

Like climate change, the cycle of fear is real and prevalent.  And as with climate change, until we learn to look fear in the face and recognize it for what it is, it will continue to grow.  A friend posted a link to a podcast by author Tara Brach in the comments section to yesterday’s post.  Ms. Brach’s book Radical Acceptance (recommended to me a few years back by another friend) is one of my favorite tools for identifying and processing the fears that cripple me, and the podcast has some wonderful insights.

Closing with some of the best words ever on the subject.  Enjoy!

 

Avoiding the Headlights -- Facing Down Fear

Photo credit: iStockphotos

Admit it, you’ve been there.  We all know that feeling – stuck, staring into the inevitability of disaster.  Fear.  It sucks.  It sucks the energy from our bodies.   It sucks compassion from our hearts.  It sucks reason from our brains.  It sucks our ambition, our drive, our confidence.  Fear sucks.

My husband and I actually made it to a theater (without kids!) last month for our anniversary to see The Green Lantern.  I think that the thing I liked most about the film (and, yes, I liked the whole movie) was the fact that the bad guy was a giant, tentacled fear-monster named Paralax.  Because that’s how fear makes us feel.  Paralyzed.

We’re going about our day, just doing our thing when it hits.  Maybe it was a word, a missed deadline, an argument, a phone call, the realization that life is about to take an unknown turn, but there it is – that feeling that we are completely incapable of dealing with whatever lies ahead.  That we can’t possibly take that next step.  That we are doomed to failure.

One of the things that I failed to realize when I first began writing as an adult was that this journey would force me to confront just about every one of my deepest fears – and on a daily basis.  Rejection?  Check.  Judgment? Check.  Criticism? Check. Talking to strangers?  Meeting deadlines?  Dealing with new protocols?  Learning new skills? Financial uncertainty?  Self-promotion? Being assertive, and even risking being a “bother?” Check. Check. Check. Checkcheckcheckcheck.  Yeah, there are days when I would gladly take the charging bull over hitting “send” on a follow-up e-mail.  After all, I can jump a fence pretty fast!

But here’s the funny thing about fear.  Fear is a big bully.  And like most bullies, fear is a coward.  Face it down enough times and it gets smaller.  When we look fear in the eye and make the phone call, hit “send,” apply for the job, or send our kids to the park on their own in spite of the amphibians in our stomachs or giant knots at the back of our necks, fear loses its power.  It crawls back into its hole.

There are two questions I ask myself when I realize that I’m letting fear dictate my actions (or inaction), words, or emotions.  What have I got to lose by doing this?  and What I am (or others) losing by letting myself fear this?

If I let fear stop me from sending a query to a new magazine, I am potentially losing a new market and a valuable contact.  However, I have absolutely nothing to lose by sending that query.  If they can’t use my idea, don’t care for my writing style, or simply don’t like the fact that they can’t figure out my last name, I haven’t lost anything.  There aren’t any negative points deducted for a wrong answer.  On the other hand, if I don’t send the query, I certainly won’t land the assignment.

It’s harder facing down fear where the people I love are concerned.  The answer to What have I got to lose? is more complex, and a lot more fraught.  Yet, relationships are a bad place to be ruled by fear.  This is where the What am I (or others) losing? question comes in.

 Letting my kids push their capabilities and explore their independence is terrifying.  What if they fall out of the tree?  What if they get run over, lost, or kidnapped?  What if they drown?  The list is endless.  But, preventing them from becoming competent, adventurous, independent individuals is not an option.  And letting them see a mother whose life is ruled by fear is not an option.  So, off they go.  And yeah, even when I let them push the boundaries, they still accuse me of being overprotective.

Talking to my husband about something that upsets me?  Ugh.  I’d rather eat okra.  It seems like there’s so much to lose by confrontation.  But, if I fester in resentment, I lose, he loses, and our marriage loses. 

Fear is a bully, and like a lot of bullies, it has a sneaky side.  It likes to disguise itself as other things: anger, caution, sanity, detachment, busy-ness.  But, even the sneakiest adversaries have ‘tells.’  Fear does, as well.  For me, when fear tries to call itself anger, I can feel it in my body – in my stomach, shoulders, neck, and behind my eyes – everything gets tight and hot.  The same tells happen when fear is pretending to be reasonable caution.  If a “no” to a question by my kids comes with any of those symptoms, I need to take another look at the reasons for my ‘no’.  Am I looking out for them, or for myself?  In my world, procrastination almost always equals fear.  There’s no other good reason for it.  I’m not that busy.  If I have time to update my Facebook status, I have time to pay a bill or send an e-mail.

The one thing that could defeat Paralax?  Willpower.

So tell me?  How do you defeat your fear-monsters?

Plague and Cathedrals

Javelins and arrows, surcoats and swords, ropes and catapults, mud and mayhem – welcome to sixth grade in a Waldorf school.   In the fifth grade, Waldorf students explore the development of human enlightenment and culture through the study of ancient civilizations.  They typically begin the year in Mesopotamia and travel through India, Egypt, ending the year in Ancient Greece.  The pinnacle of the fifth grade year is the Pentathlon.  Modeled after the ancient Greek games, the Pentathlon emphasizes form, achievement, and reaching above oneself to perfect ‘beauty, grace, and style.’ 

If fifth grade is a stage of enlightenment, sixth is a year of contrasts.  Fifth graders mirror the “Golden Age” of Greece, inhabiting their own golden age between developmental changes.  According to Steiner’s philosophy of Anthroposophy, significant spiritual, mental, and physical changes manifest in the grade-school aged child at approximately three year intervals.  Note to future parents: this is a good reason not to space your children three years apart.  In our house, we are currently enduring simultaneous manifestations of the six year change (increasing independence coupled with commensurate rebellion), the nine year change (an awakening from the dream-self of the child into the frightening isolation of the real world – comes with shorter temper, smarter mouth, anxiety, and, in boys at least, an ever increasing delight in inappropriate language and humor), and the twelve year change.

My mother, a former sixth grade teacher, swears that regardless of physiological development, all kids hit puberty in the spring of sixth grade.  The twelve year change provides a sneak peek for both children and parents into the teen years.  Mentally, sixth graders seem to fluctuate from incredible independence, responsibility, and sharpness of wit to astounding forgetfulness, sloth, and sheer boneheadedness.  Caitlin – after 4 or 5 years of competent can-opener use and generally excellent cooking skills – last Monday morning “forgot that tin can lids are sharp.”  She has also ‘forgotten’ any number of other things this year: homework, a report, the location of myriad critical items, and how to clean her room.  Yet, she remembers how to argue.  There is no statement that can be made by a sibling or adult that Caitlin will not contradict.  Walking, however, is a bit iffy.  Like her mother, Caitlin has never been the most coordinated person, but the level of tripping and spilling has increased recently to toddler level.

These are the moments in which the parents of adolescents whimper and quietly bang our heads against walls.  And, these are the moments that make the study of the Middle Ages perfect for sixth graders.  The age that brought Europe the construction of the cathedrals and the code of chivalry also brought the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Black Plague.  Every time I open my mouth to harangue my formerly hyper-responsible child about her sudden and incomprehensible loss of brain-cells, I remember another adolescent accused of “spaciness”.  A discussion the other morning went something like this:

            Me: “Will you quit arguing.  This is how it is.”

            Caitlin: “I’m not arguing.  I’m protesting.”

            Me: hysterical laughter.

Thirty years ago, I was on the other end of the same debate.  Sorry, Mom.

Honor, courage, empire-building, empire collapse, centuries-long feats of masonry, bloody war, intolerance, intricate tapestry, and catastrophic epidemic: the Middle Ages were a distillation of the extremes of human nature.  Independence, intelligence, reason, rebellion, growth, hormones, moodiness, helpfulness: sixth grade is a distillation of the extremes of human development.

If the Pentathlon emphasized enlightenment in the form of beauty, grace, and style, the Medieval Games was something more primal.  Set deep in a dark forest rather than a sunlit stadium, these were challenges of courage, physicality, and individual achievement.  Though the ‘knights to be’ travelled in shires comprised of students from each school, and though a couple of the events such as scaling the wall and the tug-o-war were cooperative, the emphasis was less on competition or team than the efforts of the individual to overcome his or her dragons.  While remnants of the fifth-grade form lingered in the javelin toss, for the most part, these newly adolescent bodies were no longer capable of the innate coordination of youth.  Some of them are entering the arms-and –legs stage, moving through life like mutant octopi.  Some of them, particularly the girls, have experience a shift in center of balance. 

Rather than compete against one another in events that require precise form, the sixth graders faced challenges such as crossing a bridge of floating (and tipping) platforms, or scaling a rope ladder to a beam high among the trees and traversing a rope foot over foot.  In these events, the style was that of the individual.  Some struggled against the fear of heights, others ran the narrow rope, or clowned around, walking backward or hanging from the rope rails.  Some gave the deliberately impossible moat (a mud filled long jump pit) their best effort while others recognized the futility and wallowed in delighted porcine glory.

Yet, there is a reason sixth graders study the Roman Empire with its emphasis on military discipline and rule, and the Middle Ages with the code of chivalry.  As Peter Parker’s uncle says (Spiderman reference, pay attention), “With great power comes great responsibility.”  The churning forces within the twelve (or almost twelve) year old body require a structured channel for release.  Side note: sixth graders begin the year’s science studies with geology, exploring the fire that twists and shapes the earth’s crust.

Our current sixth grade has never been a passive class.  As a group, they are energetic, creative, intelligent, active, and contentious.  “Discipline” and “Teamwork” are words that have been muttered on occasion when the deficits of the class were raised.  “Manners” is another.  This year, the class has been blessed with a teacher possessed of quick wit, (slightly sarcastic) humor, and a strength of personality to match the kids’ own.  Without yelling, threats or Draconian rule, he has managed to instill discipline within the class simply by challenging them at every turn to produce their best, and to work together.

At the Medieval Games, each school presents a performance for the pleasure of the “King and Queen.”  Standard offerings include sword dances and recorder performances.  This year, our class produced something different.  Written and choreographed by Dr. Tan, and executed to the beat of his drum, the DWS 6^th grade presented “The Warrior’s Creed.”  In regimented order, they performed a martial-arts inspired set of movements accompanying a recitation of the knightly virtues.  They weren’t perfect; there were the slight asynchronies one would expect from a group of eleven and twelve year olds, but one thing was clear.  Each child understood the expectation of the drumbeat and of the orders of their leader.  And each child did his or her level best to meet the expectations of their teacher and of the group.

Next year, as they adapt to the turmoil of change within their own bodies and minds, our children will move out of the Dark Ages into the light of the Renaissance.  Re-naissance, a re-birth.  Entering their teens, our kids will go through their own renaissance, as they experience this re-birth into the beginnings of adulthood.

For now, however, they shift from the mayhem of a mud-fight to the reverence of a knighting ceremony: surcoats donned over clay-encrusted T-shirts, the perfect symbols of the tumult of early adolescence.

The Warrior's Creed (below)

Surcoats over mud.  Warriors kneeling to be knighted

One Lab Accident Away...

It’s a poorly guarded secret that our household is one of geeks.  Actually, given that my two oldest children have been known to harmonize the Imperial March from Star Wars, it’s not much of a secret at all.  We are geeks.  We embrace geekdom.  The family joke is that our oldest is “one lab accident away from becoming a supervillain.”  For anyone who has ever watched Caitlin’s hazel eyes go black as her brother pushes her too far, this doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.  But, she has a saving grace – humor.  For Caitlin, a joke from the right person or a funny chapter in a book is the “undo” button for anger.  “Undo” is a critical function, and one that we often seem to overlook. 

Think of your prototypical villain – Lex Luthor, Two-Face, Green Goblin, Darth Vader.  What distinguishes the supervillain from an ordinary, flawed person?  Evil?  Well, in many cases, the villain starts out as an okay guy.   Sometimes he’s a slimy political type or a petty criminal, but where does he start to devolve into supervillainy?  I’m not trying to be sexist here; the example holds for female villains as well – Catwoman, the evil queen from Snow White – not so much Cruella De Ville (what was up with that whole Dalmatian fetish anyway?).  The trigger is usually quite simple – a painful incident from which the villain is unable to let go.  The bad guy clutches the pain -- and its associated anger -- to the chest like a teddy bear, repeating the grievance as he falls asleep at night: nursery rhymes for evil doers. 

What our friend the villain fails to realize, is that the pain is a parasite.  When held close, the parasite burrows tentacles of anger into the victim, each tentacle releasing toxins.  The toxins begin to alter the victim’s mind, rewarding each negative thought with a surge of energy.  And the villain’s brain rots from within. 

Comic book hyperbole?  Sure.  But, the metaphor is pretty transparent.  And pretty pertinent.  Anger is tied to the release of chemicals within the body, epinephrine and norepinephrine.  Think about it.  How do you feel when you are angry?  Strong, right?  Powerful.  Nobody’s gonna hurt you and get away with it.  Well, of course.  Epinephrine in particular is the same chemical that gets released when you need to fight for your life.  That surge of power is a survival tactic.  Great response if you are being chased by a lion.  Crappy response for dealing with other humans.

Is anger natural?  Yep.  Can it be a productive catalyst?  Sure – moral outrage has led to some of the greatest changes in society.  And to some of the worst.  So when does anger lead to the Civil Rights Movement, and when does it lead to the Holocaust?  (Okay, before the outraged comments begin, yes, I deliberately picked extreme examples.) 

Here’s the thing about anger: it is often fear in disguise.  Remember our friend epinephrine?  It gets released when someone insults you and when someone threatens you.  Our brains aren’t always able to tell the difference between fear and anger.  In my opinion, this is where we need to find that “undo” button.  Call it what you will: humor, forgiveness, acceptance, grace.  The ability to let go of the pain, to unwrap the tentacles of anger from around our hearts, and to look openly into the face and the cause of the pain is what separates us from the supervillains.  It doesn’t take a lab accident or a volcano planet to corrode our hearts and minds – it only takes unresolved anger.  That surge of power is a trap.  It is the zombie virus that destroys our brains and bends us to its will.

Don’t let anyone fool you – not even me.  In the short term, letting go of pain doesn’t feel good.  It feels lonely and scary.  You feel weak, vulnerable without the iron mask of anger.  You miss the kickass power surge.  You miss the feeling of moral certainty.  When you put the pain down and look at it with honesty, you are forced to see how much of it was your own creation.  That sucks.

So why bother?  Why let go of the pain and anger?  After all, someone else caused this, right?  Why should you feel bad?

Well, for one thing, the cycle needs to break somewhere.  As it stands now, we are heading toward a society of villains.  And, besides, what happens to the villain in the end?

Tasting the Fruits

The last bite of the carrot salad lingers on my tongue – tart and crisp with the yogurt, and brightly sweet with a hidden warmth that spreads from the spoonful of chutney I stirred in.   A final sip of lemon water washes away the salad, and with it goes the tensions of the last month. 

Forgive the food references this morning; I’ve been re-reading M.F.K. Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me after reading an intriguing new biography of Fisher, An Extravagant Hunger by Anne Zimmerman.  My first journey through The Gastronomical Me took place nearly three years ago.  I picked it up in a San Francisco bookstore while alone in the City for a conference.  Fisher’s exploration of her growth and her sensual enjoyment of the world through her experiences with food seemed to perfectly mirror my solitary week exploring the culinary delights of that foggy city.  Just as I dressed in a black skirt and pearl necklace for a four-course dinner alone with my book, delighting as much in watching the people around me as in the feel of pate in my mouth, she wrote of crossing the Atlantic on her own, of solitary meals in France, and of discovering herself through her enjoyment of food.  The quote in the book’s preface spoke to me at a time when I felt that I was at last reaching an understanding of my adult self.  “To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.” –Santayana

That was not my first business trip alone, and I had been an adult for two decades, but for whatever reason, that was the week that I first began to ‘take the measure of [my] powers.’  It was one of the first times that I saw myself as directing my own life rather than living for the approval and pleasure of others. 

This most recent encounter with M.F.K. Fisher comes at the end of a couple of months in which my meals have too often consisted of such staples as: two Bao from Costco, microwaved and eaten over the counter with a handful of cashews and a couple of dates; or a grilled cheese sandwich on white sandwich bread, accompanied by a clump of chips.  My energies have been directed goal-ward with little left for inward maintenance.  Even the things which normally center me have this month gone toward other purposes: painting – auction, decorating – auction and Sierra’s party, writing – money or business building, cooking – sustenance only.

What I hadn’t realized, until Fisher’s loving descriptions of meals, friends, and family once more penetrated the fog of my mind, was that I have been living – and eating – therapeutically rather than preventatively.  I know better, of course.  I know the benefits, to myself, and to those around me, of living with intent, of seeking the foods, people, and activities that will make me feel good, rather than seeking out palliatives once I feel bad.  Instead of taking care of myself, eating light, flavorful meals that will sustain me through the chaos, I have waited until monsters were gnawing at my stomach lining and emotions, and then downed too-large portions of the sweet, salty, and doughy foods that make me ‘feel better.’  Even though I no longer have a job that mandates short nails and tears up my hands, my nails remain unpolished and have scarcely seen a file in 60 days.  The extra glass of wine with dinner tastes good and dulls the stress, but it also packs in the calories and leaves me feeling heavy and slow well into the next morning.

It is past time for me to stop, breathe, and focus on eating the foods and doing the things that help keep me from “feeling bad” in the first place.  It is time to run because it clears my head, centers, and energizes me, not because I want to lose weight.  It is time to prepare even meals I will eat alone lovingly, with consideration for myself and for those I feed.  It is time to be aware of, and to take pleasure in, each bite, and to stop when the bites become automatic or the food tastes of sawdust.  It is time to take moments in the day to breathe, to focus on my place in the world, and to give myself enough respite during the day so that I don’t reach the end wrung out, capable only of flopping into a pool of Jello on the couch.  As life presses me with new challenges, it is time to embrace the biggest challenge of all – to live.

The Morning After

It comes out of the blue.  Other conditions invade the body gradually, they stand on the doorstep and knock softly or at least cough.  “Um, sorry to bother you, but your stomach really isn’t feeling well – perhaps it was something you ate?”  “Gee, I hate to do this, but that scratching at the back of your throat, yeah, that’s me.”  Not the migraine – it doesn’t shuffle its feet, or clear its throat; there is no gentle tapping here.  Migraine breaks down the door and invites itself in.

It comes from the black, perhaps some void between sanity and madness?  One minute everything is fine.  You’re opening a pomegranate in a glass bowl of water, freeing the little rubies, the arils, from the spongy, Styrofoam connective tissue.  You watch the juice bleed into the water; you trace the swirls with your eyes.  Then you realize that the swirls aren’t in the bowl, they are in your brain.

Most of the time, it’s easy to forget that the nervous system is one big, complex electrical circuit.  Easy until the lightning strikes.  The aura, they call it, that series of flashes and swirling lines zapping across the brain.  Some people get sound; I get lights.  Perhaps the circuits fail at my weak point, my myopic eyes, perhaps it strikes the sense I use most.  I live for color and pattern, the aura shreds those pictures with electric arcs of chaos.  But, that’s sheer fancy, and the scientist in me knows better.  The attack is not personalized; it is a matter of circulation and wiring, susceptibility to certain triggers.

The other half of the pomegranate sits on the orange laminate counter, a pool of its blood near its feet.  Throughout the day, the arils will darken, congealing as the carcass of white tissue desiccates around them.  It will sit there, half a globe, the swirling patterns of seed reminding me of the flashes of aura, the folds of tissue reminding me of the sulci and gyri of the brain.  My brain has been ironed flat, then crumpled into a ball.  The pomegranate will rest on the counter until my husband comes home to make dinner.  He will move it, uncertain whether to throw it out, to the top of the microwave.  I can’t touch it.

The aura is migraine’s way of letting me know it has arrived.  “Take your meds now!”  I stumble to the bedroom, passing Mike in the hall, saying, “Sorry.  Migraine.  Can you finish lunches?”  I swallow two white capsules and fall into my bed, down the rabbit hole.  Nothing else will happen that day.  My daughter, home with a stomach ache, will fix her own ramen at lunch.  “Mom, do you need anything?” she will ask, roles flipped.  I can’t even cuddle her in my big bed.  Every movement of the mattress rattles my skull and sloshes waves of nausea throughout my body.

Nothing else will happen.  The over-the-counter pills will fall beneath the sledgehammer blows.  I take a Vicodin.  A five-hour nap later, I will try to write, pouring water into my wrung out body.  One hundred words, two, a game of Mah Jong against the computer.  The headache is returning, pressing against my eyeballs.  Grilled cheese sandwich on white bread for dinner – not the Pugliese bread, just the sliced stuff for the kids’ lunches.  I take another Vicodin and curl up on the couch, resting against my husband’s lap.  My body floats away on a cloud of opiates, the headache and I stay on the couch.

The morning after, the storm has broken.  I awaken an hour before my alarm, at my usual time. Brain and body have been reunited.  Light is just light, sound merely sound.  This is the gift of the migraine: the peace after the onslaught, door back on its hinges, unwelcome visitor gone.