Many years ago I had an opportunity to be a summer camp counselor at the best camp in the Bay Area (I am biased) - Camp Kee Tov in Berkeley. In my second year, I convinced the director, Steve Chabon (a legend), to let me bring back the science and nature specialty in Mapilim.
Mapilim is for fifth and sixth graders, and the program highlights are to teach kids a specialty. Most kids coming into Mapilim already know the specialty they want - dance, drama, sports, or arts and crafts. There was an attempt in the past to include a science and nature specialty, but it didn't seem to have enough umph to get kids excited.
I made my case with Steve - science and nature wasn't going to be about taking walks in the woods, building baking soda volcanoes, and hugging trees - it was going to be science versus nature. I had devised an entire role-fantasy game with a science fiction story that starts many years after a nuclear meltdown. Scientists who had gone into hiding resurface generations later once the air quality is safe to find that the planet has changed quite a bit - a lot more water and a lot scarcer land and resources.
The scientists also resurface to discovery that civilization didn't completely die out. There are small colonies of people who live off the land, relying on nature (rather than demolished technology) to survive.The basic premise of the game is that the scientists need resources, the nature people are under the thumb of the scientists who have way more advanced weapons, technology, etc. Each child had to pick which side they would be on, and define their character over a course of four weeks.
Steve, a sucker for story-telling, let me go for it. And realizing that it wasn't going to be easy to convince kids to think about something different, I spent a great deal of time preparing for the 'sell'. The sell is a day on which all the kids have to try all the specialties and pick the one they want. I spent at least a good week preparing my notes for the story, and coming up with illustrated, detailed examples of characters, including my own - the wizard, on the side of nature.
The last item to prepare for the 'sell' was the game board - a large piece of plastic tarp that could fit at least six kids on either side, on which I drew the planet earth and spray painted the land according to the story - lots more water than green. Because of my mad work schedule (I had three jobs), I couldn't start the spray painting until 9 at night.
I had the idea well thought out, the earth stencil prepared ahead of time, so I figured it would take me two hours at the most to spray paint the tarp. Two hours later, a perfect representation of earth before me, I was ready for a cold beer. Just as I was securing the sides so that the tarp could dry, a gust of Berkeley wind blew the tarp across the ground, the earth destroyed, and paint everywhere.
Though I felt the weight of tired on my shoulders, tears welling up in my eyes, something so strong inside myself believed in what I was trying to do and was excited about the possibility of seeing this vision come to life.
I washed over the tarp with a strong hose, cleaned up the paint from all around, and hand-dried the tarp. I started over, redrawing the earth, re-spraying paint, and being a lot more clever about weighting the tarp. 3 AM, I finished the project, exhausted, but feeling good about myself for not giving up.
On the day of the sell, almost every single kid put down nature and science as their first-choice specialty. I had a wait-list. For the entire summer, I put everything I had into making this story come to life, into keeping the children's imaginations alive. It was amazing, exhausting, but amazing.
The following year, I returned as the wizard, and the game, now a legend, continued, wait-listed a second year in a row, but in a much more sensible way. And though I still had to put a lot of time and effort into keeping the game going, I had experience, I knew what I was doing - I could have even more fun with it, having worked out the kinks with some of the more tedious aspects of the specialty.
This week I have been thinking about that game in a metaphoric sense and how much I need another spray-painting-a-tarp moment. I need to feel excited about something that challenges me, something that I know if I put the work in, and persevere through the gusty-wind surprises, willing to start over if needs be, and getting smarter the second time around, I will feel this sense of satisfaction that comes with seeing a vision through to reality.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
On becoming a mom (and for Fiona)
Last night Amelia settled herself to sleep in her big girl bed for the first time. It took a couple of 'super-nanny' carries back to the bed, but her brave self cuddled up with her blankets and dog while I sat very quietly in the corner to help her feel safe.
Until four in the morning, our new neighbors were moving in, walking up and down the side of our house moving all sorts of crazy stuff-- neither Padhraic nor myself slept very much. Amelia was woken up a couple of times and in true big-girl fashion, she snuggled herself back to sleep until 6 AM, when she walked out of the door herself into our room for a snuggle.
We all fell back to sleep for an hour and woke up to a ringing phone - Somhairle in Brisbane. The baby was born - Elise. It was a tough labor, 17 hours, with 7 hours of full-on pitosine (any mom who has had it for any period of time knows how much this hurts). And for the record, 7 hours is a lot longer than I could stand the pain.
Fiona pushed her heart out, refusing to give in to the pain, but the docs finally told her it was a no-go and Miss Elise entered the world via a section. I know Fiona and she is processing this one - wanting so much to be up, to be going, to be participating in the space of motherhood, thinking that her immobility is slowing her down.
And this is very much what motherhood is about - we are constantly working so hard to be the best that we can for our children, and even as we push ourselves more than we ever have, trying to find that perfect balance, we feel tired, down on ourselves most often for things that we cannot control, like what happens in childbirth, like what happens when we try and breastfeed, like what happens when we try and get our body shape back, like what happens when we try and enforce boundaries, but we don't want to be too harsh, because we want to build confidence, and be a loving, kind mom. This is a never-ending list.
Fiona, you may never get a chance to read this one because of the craziness to come over the next month, so I will be sure to tell you in person in a couple of months time. It gets easier. We get more confident. Sometimes we shine and can feel how we have done something right, how are children are growing, and moving, and smiling, and laughing, and talking, and starting to take the world in for themselves, that bit stronger because we are there, always trying our best, and questioning if we could do it better, even in those moments of subtle perfection.
Love you, mama.
Until four in the morning, our new neighbors were moving in, walking up and down the side of our house moving all sorts of crazy stuff-- neither Padhraic nor myself slept very much. Amelia was woken up a couple of times and in true big-girl fashion, she snuggled herself back to sleep until 6 AM, when she walked out of the door herself into our room for a snuggle.
We all fell back to sleep for an hour and woke up to a ringing phone - Somhairle in Brisbane. The baby was born - Elise. It was a tough labor, 17 hours, with 7 hours of full-on pitosine (any mom who has had it for any period of time knows how much this hurts). And for the record, 7 hours is a lot longer than I could stand the pain.
Fiona pushed her heart out, refusing to give in to the pain, but the docs finally told her it was a no-go and Miss Elise entered the world via a section. I know Fiona and she is processing this one - wanting so much to be up, to be going, to be participating in the space of motherhood, thinking that her immobility is slowing her down.
And this is very much what motherhood is about - we are constantly working so hard to be the best that we can for our children, and even as we push ourselves more than we ever have, trying to find that perfect balance, we feel tired, down on ourselves most often for things that we cannot control, like what happens in childbirth, like what happens when we try and breastfeed, like what happens when we try and get our body shape back, like what happens when we try and enforce boundaries, but we don't want to be too harsh, because we want to build confidence, and be a loving, kind mom. This is a never-ending list.
Fiona, you may never get a chance to read this one because of the craziness to come over the next month, so I will be sure to tell you in person in a couple of months time. It gets easier. We get more confident. Sometimes we shine and can feel how we have done something right, how are children are growing, and moving, and smiling, and laughing, and talking, and starting to take the world in for themselves, that bit stronger because we are there, always trying our best, and questioning if we could do it better, even in those moments of subtle perfection.
Love you, mama.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Just keep swimming... just keep swimming... just keep swimming
Having watched Finding Nemo with Amelia the weekend before last, I am grateful to Dory, the fish, for helping me push past one of the strangest feelings I have had in a long time.
I can only describe this feeling as projected post-traumatic stress syndrome. On Saturday, I watched Amelia fall from the top of the stairs to our garage backwards head first and for a very short period of time, I felt that I had lost the entire universe, replaced by this split-second void that felt as if it would never ever go away not ever, until I saw her body move, heard her cry, watched tears stream down her face, and felt her warm body moving freely, safely in my arms.
I don't remember how I got to the bottom of the steps - my first memory is that I wasn't getting oxygen to my brain and I had to sit down. As the day progressed, I felt myself unable to stop holding my daughter, of wanting to hear her breathe, feel her little hands and feet, touch her soft curls. Physically my own body felt as if it had been in an accident. My whole body ached in a strange way.
Yesterday, the day after, was a celebration of life, sunshine, Amelia. And then today, it is as if I cannot concentrate. Padhraic has left for Canada and Amelia is in daycare. My brain has been fuzzy the entire day, and all the things that motivate me in life, my work, my writing, my running, even food which never ceases to be a passion, seem to feel far away, fuzzy.
I know when I pick up Amelia in less than an hour, my world will return to normal, but I want to recognize this moment, somehow capture the essence of what it is and feel it in all that it represents. I went out for a run, forced myself to do something, and I passed this nice couple walking down the street. The woman was wearing a baseball cap with a shamrock on it and she said - just keep going. And I remembered Dory, and her words, just keep swimming.
My heart goes out truly to people in this world who have experienced real and tangible loss, of which I only experienced a split second of and it has turned my body, brain, and essence of self into mush in the first opportunity I have had alone to process it.
Hugs to you all and sharing the only wisdom that seems to make sense of what I am feeling, and that coming from a blue fish who has the privilege of short-term memory loss.
I can only describe this feeling as projected post-traumatic stress syndrome. On Saturday, I watched Amelia fall from the top of the stairs to our garage backwards head first and for a very short period of time, I felt that I had lost the entire universe, replaced by this split-second void that felt as if it would never ever go away not ever, until I saw her body move, heard her cry, watched tears stream down her face, and felt her warm body moving freely, safely in my arms.
I don't remember how I got to the bottom of the steps - my first memory is that I wasn't getting oxygen to my brain and I had to sit down. As the day progressed, I felt myself unable to stop holding my daughter, of wanting to hear her breathe, feel her little hands and feet, touch her soft curls. Physically my own body felt as if it had been in an accident. My whole body ached in a strange way.
Yesterday, the day after, was a celebration of life, sunshine, Amelia. And then today, it is as if I cannot concentrate. Padhraic has left for Canada and Amelia is in daycare. My brain has been fuzzy the entire day, and all the things that motivate me in life, my work, my writing, my running, even food which never ceases to be a passion, seem to feel far away, fuzzy.
I know when I pick up Amelia in less than an hour, my world will return to normal, but I want to recognize this moment, somehow capture the essence of what it is and feel it in all that it represents. I went out for a run, forced myself to do something, and I passed this nice couple walking down the street. The woman was wearing a baseball cap with a shamrock on it and she said - just keep going. And I remembered Dory, and her words, just keep swimming.
My heart goes out truly to people in this world who have experienced real and tangible loss, of which I only experienced a split second of and it has turned my body, brain, and essence of self into mush in the first opportunity I have had alone to process it.
Hugs to you all and sharing the only wisdom that seems to make sense of what I am feeling, and that coming from a blue fish who has the privilege of short-term memory loss.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Learning to be emotionally strong when pushing oneself
Today marks the end of a major deadline in work (a two-year release cycle). This deadline is quite different to others I have experienced in the past. It is the first time I have pushed towards a major release while being a mom. With my husband travelling three out of the last four weeks, I had to juggle being a single-parent while working long, intense hours.
Something happened on the way towards the deadline, something that I have often hoped for, but never quite was able to achieve. I stayed calm, I stayed focus, and I stayed positive, even with lots of variables pushing me in lots of directions.
Other times in my life, I would have experienced a sense of frustration towards the end, participating in the politics that other tired people are engaging in, or else arguing with my husband over trivial things that just don't matter in the bigger scheme of life. This time I felt it very important to stay positive, to be emotionally strong for my daughter. I did not want my work to negatively affect her life.
I felt this tremendous desire to prove to myself that I could be good at my job, successfully participate in an intense delivery period, and still sit down and play house, serving many, many stuffed animals cups of tea. What I discovered during this release is that it takes a lot less energy to stay positive and you get this tremendous boost of mental and physical strength, making it possible to do so much more than you would normally be capable of, simply because you are emotionally stable to the core.
I have pushed myself so many times before, physically, mentally, but I can honestly say this is the first time that I asked myself to stay emotionally sound, to be spiritually present while I was asking my mind and body to do way more than is natural in a 24-hour time period.
It is by far the biggest achievement for me in this release. I don't feel as if I need to rebuild my life - I never stopped living.
Thanks, Suzana, for helping me to realize the value of being present, here and now.
Something happened on the way towards the deadline, something that I have often hoped for, but never quite was able to achieve. I stayed calm, I stayed focus, and I stayed positive, even with lots of variables pushing me in lots of directions.
Other times in my life, I would have experienced a sense of frustration towards the end, participating in the politics that other tired people are engaging in, or else arguing with my husband over trivial things that just don't matter in the bigger scheme of life. This time I felt it very important to stay positive, to be emotionally strong for my daughter. I did not want my work to negatively affect her life.
I felt this tremendous desire to prove to myself that I could be good at my job, successfully participate in an intense delivery period, and still sit down and play house, serving many, many stuffed animals cups of tea. What I discovered during this release is that it takes a lot less energy to stay positive and you get this tremendous boost of mental and physical strength, making it possible to do so much more than you would normally be capable of, simply because you are emotionally stable to the core.
I have pushed myself so many times before, physically, mentally, but I can honestly say this is the first time that I asked myself to stay emotionally sound, to be spiritually present while I was asking my mind and body to do way more than is natural in a 24-hour time period.
It is by far the biggest achievement for me in this release. I don't feel as if I need to rebuild my life - I never stopped living.
Thanks, Suzana, for helping me to realize the value of being present, here and now.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Unifying themes in the novel
I mentioned awhile back that I am working on a novel. I haven't said a lot about this novel, but interestingly enough, it is the one thing I haven't totally dropped the ball on during major deadlines in work.
I have reached a point in the writing process where I have 35 scenes lined up, some real characters, and some real themes developing. I know the next step is to work on the narrative, bringing the scenes, characters, and themes together in a plot. But I was struggling a little bit on the overall message, something at the tip of my tongue, but not quite out yet... until today.
Let me start by talking about three themes that I have been pursuing.
The first theme has been there since the beginning. I call it the tie-theme. There are three primary types of personalities that I am interested in pursuing: the person who wears the tie they are meant to wear, the person who wears the cool tie without even trying (the one you want to emulate), and the person who wears the wrong tie (let's say the awkward, eclectic type). Right now I have three characters, each one aligning with one of these personalities, but how that plays out internally and externally is somewhat 'grey'.
The 'grey' theme is based on the notion that we all have moments when we realize the world isn't black and white (I have been exploring this theme in the blog). We have to find a way to accept this. And if we are truly be happy, we have to find a way to embrace this. This is playing out through one of the main characters whom I have based on my perceptions of my young daugher's personality, and how she will begin to grow up in this world. As a young child, she and her mom have a moment at the end of each day (which I am planning on doing with my daugher) where we talk about five good things that happened and five not so good things that happened in the day. There is a point in the narrative (which may be very close to the start of the novel) where this young girl starts to genuinely struggle with the process of dividing the good and the bad. Things just don't seem to fall into these categories any more. And she feels a crumbling, a genuine struggle.
The third theme, the hardest of all, is the one that I knew I had to get right in order to be able to bring to the novel a message, an idea, something that I intrinsically feel to be true, and that I want to bring to my daughter's life as she gets older. I have known for awhile now, that I wanted to push against Virginia Woolf and her intense desire to seek the internal in her narrative, to move away from the external as the reflection of self, and see self as something far deeper than the surroundings. Virginia was, of course, pushing against writers like Henry James, who used surroundings to capture the internal essence of their characters.
You must know that I feel a serious connection to Woolf, one that is developing so much more as I transform into a writer of fiction. (For those of you wondering, I did get the Woolf tattoo which I will share with you in a separate account.) And I have been trying to come to terms with why I want to push against this writer that I feel such admiration for. But every part of me knows that it isn't liberating to be stuck in a room of one's own, alone with our thoughts for hours on end. It isn't empowering to be stuck in one's head, and particuarly dangerous to remove one's thoughts from the intensity of environment.
Perhaps it has come to me today, this beautiful thing, precisely because I have spent the last few weeks with my head deep in concentration, in a study in the back of my house, away from life, working intensely toward deadlines in work. And today, on this most glorious California spring day, I said feck this - I am going running, I am going to feel the sun, I am going to be outside of my head, I am going to experience the senses of the world around me.... Shebang!
The main character in her struggle to make sense out of the grey has these moments of being stuck in her head, and no matter how hard she tries to make life explainable in the binary sense, the more she is unable to do so. The more she tries to curb her senses, to try and think her way, to reason her way around the external spaces, the more she will be removed from self.
There will be moments when she is able to experience the world, when her memory and her ability to reason with herself will seem to make sense, literally, her physical and her mental will start to feel a sense of harmony with each other. And I can see something similar playing out for all three characters (just in a different way based on their personalities).
This is where it gets very technical. I wrote a paper awhile back on memory and the connection with fiction - the same part of the brain that is responsible for writing fiction is aligned with that part of the brain that is responsible for memory. The neurological memory theory is that the more senses one can attach to a memory, the more likely that memory is to be true... I will very much use this as my push against Virginia.
That in becoming self, this young woman will have this moment when she is feeling so much around her, when all her senses are heightened, and she realizes why she was able to make those lists as a child, and why she cannot seem to do it now - that as a child, what her senses perceived were absolutely aligned with the way she analyzed the world. But as she got older, there seemed to grow this disconnect, that sometimes she could feel good sensually about something, but not so good mentally. And yet, in this awesome moment of sensory perception of self (we have all had these amazing moments in our lives), she once again reconciles that which is inside with that which is out.
I am ready to name this character. She is Gracie.
Dad, how amazing is that?!
I have reached a point in the writing process where I have 35 scenes lined up, some real characters, and some real themes developing. I know the next step is to work on the narrative, bringing the scenes, characters, and themes together in a plot. But I was struggling a little bit on the overall message, something at the tip of my tongue, but not quite out yet... until today.
Let me start by talking about three themes that I have been pursuing.
The first theme has been there since the beginning. I call it the tie-theme. There are three primary types of personalities that I am interested in pursuing: the person who wears the tie they are meant to wear, the person who wears the cool tie without even trying (the one you want to emulate), and the person who wears the wrong tie (let's say the awkward, eclectic type). Right now I have three characters, each one aligning with one of these personalities, but how that plays out internally and externally is somewhat 'grey'.
The 'grey' theme is based on the notion that we all have moments when we realize the world isn't black and white (I have been exploring this theme in the blog). We have to find a way to accept this. And if we are truly be happy, we have to find a way to embrace this. This is playing out through one of the main characters whom I have based on my perceptions of my young daugher's personality, and how she will begin to grow up in this world. As a young child, she and her mom have a moment at the end of each day (which I am planning on doing with my daugher) where we talk about five good things that happened and five not so good things that happened in the day. There is a point in the narrative (which may be very close to the start of the novel) where this young girl starts to genuinely struggle with the process of dividing the good and the bad. Things just don't seem to fall into these categories any more. And she feels a crumbling, a genuine struggle.
The third theme, the hardest of all, is the one that I knew I had to get right in order to be able to bring to the novel a message, an idea, something that I intrinsically feel to be true, and that I want to bring to my daughter's life as she gets older. I have known for awhile now, that I wanted to push against Virginia Woolf and her intense desire to seek the internal in her narrative, to move away from the external as the reflection of self, and see self as something far deeper than the surroundings. Virginia was, of course, pushing against writers like Henry James, who used surroundings to capture the internal essence of their characters.
You must know that I feel a serious connection to Woolf, one that is developing so much more as I transform into a writer of fiction. (For those of you wondering, I did get the Woolf tattoo which I will share with you in a separate account.) And I have been trying to come to terms with why I want to push against this writer that I feel such admiration for. But every part of me knows that it isn't liberating to be stuck in a room of one's own, alone with our thoughts for hours on end. It isn't empowering to be stuck in one's head, and particuarly dangerous to remove one's thoughts from the intensity of environment.
Perhaps it has come to me today, this beautiful thing, precisely because I have spent the last few weeks with my head deep in concentration, in a study in the back of my house, away from life, working intensely toward deadlines in work. And today, on this most glorious California spring day, I said feck this - I am going running, I am going to feel the sun, I am going to be outside of my head, I am going to experience the senses of the world around me.... Shebang!
The main character in her struggle to make sense out of the grey has these moments of being stuck in her head, and no matter how hard she tries to make life explainable in the binary sense, the more she is unable to do so. The more she tries to curb her senses, to try and think her way, to reason her way around the external spaces, the more she will be removed from self.
There will be moments when she is able to experience the world, when her memory and her ability to reason with herself will seem to make sense, literally, her physical and her mental will start to feel a sense of harmony with each other. And I can see something similar playing out for all three characters (just in a different way based on their personalities).
This is where it gets very technical. I wrote a paper awhile back on memory and the connection with fiction - the same part of the brain that is responsible for writing fiction is aligned with that part of the brain that is responsible for memory. The neurological memory theory is that the more senses one can attach to a memory, the more likely that memory is to be true... I will very much use this as my push against Virginia.
That in becoming self, this young woman will have this moment when she is feeling so much around her, when all her senses are heightened, and she realizes why she was able to make those lists as a child, and why she cannot seem to do it now - that as a child, what her senses perceived were absolutely aligned with the way she analyzed the world. But as she got older, there seemed to grow this disconnect, that sometimes she could feel good sensually about something, but not so good mentally. And yet, in this awesome moment of sensory perception of self (we have all had these amazing moments in our lives), she once again reconciles that which is inside with that which is out.
I am ready to name this character. She is Gracie.
Dad, how amazing is that?!
Monday, March 14, 2011
On feminism (please don't let the title put you off)
I have thought about writing an entry on feminism for awhile now, and I had all these sophisticated ideas on how to cover the subject, but couldn't narrow down my focus, or get enough time to express simply some of the ideas spinning in my head. But today it is a subject I feel compelled to write about, even if I do not have the time or focus to do it justice.
Two friends close to my heart are experiencing fundamental moments in their lives: one is in full labor as I write, induced with a pitocin drip; the other had her bandages taken off after her double-mastectomy. A third friend sent a long email about her pregnancy, the nervousness coming into the last trimester, and the almost comical preparations that we go through leading up to the big moment. On top of this, I am in still deadlines, my husband is traveling, and I have been coming to terms with the fact that I can't seem to get my head stuck back into work tonight.
I just got off the phone with my husband. He said that he was going to clear his plate after presentations on Wednesday so that I could have some much needed time to do the work that I need to do. I did not ask for this - he offered it. And there is something essential in this moment. Many people would read this and think that of course he should give me time on Thursday and Friday to do what I need to do. And since he will have finished his major presentations, he should not feel pressure to do so.
But there is something subtle at play here. Sometimes I know that he feels life would be easier if one of us was less determined in our profession, and that one of us could happily take a step back if it was feasible in our lives financially. He grapples with the fact that I had to make sauce for Nicki and Morgan tonight, in the same breadth I was pushing on work deadlines, in the same breadth he is traveling and our daughter needs to come first before all the other bits and pieces. He sees the tired in me, the lack of ability to get out for runs, to do my own writing, the novel, this blog, and all those other things that are quintessential me.
Tonight though, he processed what it is for me to be the person that I am, the one who is good at her job, who is good at being a mom, who wants so much to be a devoted wife, who is a loving friend, but who is also a person in and around all these things that make up the daily schedule. He recognized the meaning of feminism in my life - the need to be driven in all aspects of self at all times, rather than zoning in on one particular aspect, and making it of singular importance in a specific moment in time.
Feminism has changed so much that I almost think we need a new word for it. It is about pursuing excellence in all aspects of self, be it the physical aspects of woman in child bearing, child rearing, in exercising and having a body that isn't totally frumpy (which mine seems to be these days), the emotional aspects of supporting the ones we love when they need us the most, the social aspects of engaging with the community through a blog, volunteering, the mental aspects of problem solving, and communicating it in the simplest, clearest, effective way possible, and most of all, the spiritual aspects of self - being able to take a deep breath and be present with ourselves and our own passions with our partners and our family - taking time not just to experience life, but to embrace it. I am exhausted typing this, just as many women are exhausted living this.
For me, feminism is like a finely cut diamond, all the edges coming together in as perfectly a symmetrical way as possible. So I googled 'adjectives to describe diamonds' hoping that a term would emerge that better describes feminism, and I found 'dispersion', defined as 'the degree to which white light is split into its spectral colors within the stone' (thank-you wikipedia). Perhaps modern day feminism is better phrased as 'dispersionism'.
Two friends close to my heart are experiencing fundamental moments in their lives: one is in full labor as I write, induced with a pitocin drip; the other had her bandages taken off after her double-mastectomy. A third friend sent a long email about her pregnancy, the nervousness coming into the last trimester, and the almost comical preparations that we go through leading up to the big moment. On top of this, I am in still deadlines, my husband is traveling, and I have been coming to terms with the fact that I can't seem to get my head stuck back into work tonight.
I just got off the phone with my husband. He said that he was going to clear his plate after presentations on Wednesday so that I could have some much needed time to do the work that I need to do. I did not ask for this - he offered it. And there is something essential in this moment. Many people would read this and think that of course he should give me time on Thursday and Friday to do what I need to do. And since he will have finished his major presentations, he should not feel pressure to do so.
But there is something subtle at play here. Sometimes I know that he feels life would be easier if one of us was less determined in our profession, and that one of us could happily take a step back if it was feasible in our lives financially. He grapples with the fact that I had to make sauce for Nicki and Morgan tonight, in the same breadth I was pushing on work deadlines, in the same breadth he is traveling and our daughter needs to come first before all the other bits and pieces. He sees the tired in me, the lack of ability to get out for runs, to do my own writing, the novel, this blog, and all those other things that are quintessential me.
Tonight though, he processed what it is for me to be the person that I am, the one who is good at her job, who is good at being a mom, who wants so much to be a devoted wife, who is a loving friend, but who is also a person in and around all these things that make up the daily schedule. He recognized the meaning of feminism in my life - the need to be driven in all aspects of self at all times, rather than zoning in on one particular aspect, and making it of singular importance in a specific moment in time.
Feminism has changed so much that I almost think we need a new word for it. It is about pursuing excellence in all aspects of self, be it the physical aspects of woman in child bearing, child rearing, in exercising and having a body that isn't totally frumpy (which mine seems to be these days), the emotional aspects of supporting the ones we love when they need us the most, the social aspects of engaging with the community through a blog, volunteering, the mental aspects of problem solving, and communicating it in the simplest, clearest, effective way possible, and most of all, the spiritual aspects of self - being able to take a deep breath and be present with ourselves and our own passions with our partners and our family - taking time not just to experience life, but to embrace it. I am exhausted typing this, just as many women are exhausted living this.
For me, feminism is like a finely cut diamond, all the edges coming together in as perfectly a symmetrical way as possible. So I googled 'adjectives to describe diamonds' hoping that a term would emerge that better describes feminism, and I found 'dispersion', defined as 'the degree to which white light is split into its spectral colors within the stone' (thank-you wikipedia). Perhaps modern day feminism is better phrased as 'dispersionism'.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Grace
I want to talk about the spectrum of people's ability to cope with problems, myself included. I am coming to terms with something very interesting about myself - that I am very good at complaining, moaning, mostly about the small things (I tend not to moan as much about the big stuff). I complain about the increased workload in release mode, I complain about politics, I complain about the lack of sleep in my life, about missed exercise, not being able to go skiing last Sunday.
I have had this motto in my life for a long time - that it is better to complain and get things done than to never complain and never get things done. And this motto has worked for me... until recently.
I have been spending time with a friend who's had a lot of big stuff on her plate all at once. I am not going to list all of these things. She jokes and says that if she wrote a book, it would never get published because people would not believe it is the truth - it would be far to out of touch with the realistic. I joke that I wish Oprah was still around, as we might be able to dedicate a whole show to her life.
With all that she is going through, the most important thing to her is to fix it, to find normalcy. She often talks about other people's lives, dreams about how things could be better, asks me about my own life. And in discussion about her own situation, there are jokes, moments of frustration, sheer exhaustion, but never that moany-groany-complaining sense of life isn't fair.
What I have noticed in all this is that I want to be around her, I am not dragged down by her suffering. And I have realized that I could learn from this, that I could tone down my own moaning. My life is seriously good. There are so many blessings around me, I can't even count them. And yes, I do get tired, but that doesn't mean that I need to moan about it. If I can find a way in myself to push through it, to embrace that full life that I have rather than seeing the tired as a burden, it will not only make me happier, but also all those around me.
I am never going to be as strong as my friend. My husband who rarely comments on people says that she is the strongest person he has ever met which says a lot more than me saying it. But I for sure feel that I can embrace the grace with which she lives her life.
I have had this motto in my life for a long time - that it is better to complain and get things done than to never complain and never get things done. And this motto has worked for me... until recently.
I have been spending time with a friend who's had a lot of big stuff on her plate all at once. I am not going to list all of these things. She jokes and says that if she wrote a book, it would never get published because people would not believe it is the truth - it would be far to out of touch with the realistic. I joke that I wish Oprah was still around, as we might be able to dedicate a whole show to her life.
With all that she is going through, the most important thing to her is to fix it, to find normalcy. She often talks about other people's lives, dreams about how things could be better, asks me about my own life. And in discussion about her own situation, there are jokes, moments of frustration, sheer exhaustion, but never that moany-groany-complaining sense of life isn't fair.
What I have noticed in all this is that I want to be around her, I am not dragged down by her suffering. And I have realized that I could learn from this, that I could tone down my own moaning. My life is seriously good. There are so many blessings around me, I can't even count them. And yes, I do get tired, but that doesn't mean that I need to moan about it. If I can find a way in myself to push through it, to embrace that full life that I have rather than seeing the tired as a burden, it will not only make me happier, but also all those around me.
I am never going to be as strong as my friend. My husband who rarely comments on people says that she is the strongest person he has ever met which says a lot more than me saying it. But I for sure feel that I can embrace the grace with which she lives her life.
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