On Living Close to Family

Without trying to, I’ve lived close to at least one side of my family for my whole life.  When I was choosing colleges, while I contemplated far flung schools with catalog-created fantasies (strolling through crumbling stone archways at Oxford, living in a Gothic Southern mansion at Duke), I ended up at Berkeley, the school where my dad had attended and continued to live less than two hours away from.

This meant that when I got the flu my sophomore spring, my dad hung up the phone after I called and showed up at my doorstep that afternoon, bearing cleaning supplies to take care of my sick-filled apartment and chicken noodle soup to heal by belly and soul.  When I moved to San Francisco after college, my dad was there to take me sailing and out to a nice dinner after I got rejected from job after job.  When an adverse reaction to medication caused me to faint and hit my head, my dad moved in with my roommates and I for three days, playing cards with me and watching my pupils for sign of a brain bleed.  An IKEA couch that needed assembling?  Moving from one apartment to another?  Help was only a phone call away.

I live on the East Coast now, and have been similarly spoiled to be close to my mom’s side of the family, who were born and raised in Brooklyn.  My aunt has become my go-to source for intellectual stimulation and emotional comfort, popping over from suburban Scarsdale to discuss men, politics, entertainment, and life over cheap Mediterranean food.  My mom, who fled the cold of New York for Atlanta, hops on the two-hour flight several times a year, to make sure I have enough culture in my life (Broadway plays are always a must-do on the weekend agenda) and color in my clothing (“it’s so much more flattering than all that black you wear, sweetie!”).

It snuck on me as the unconsidered yet blaringly obvious fact of my move to London:  this is the first time I will be living on my own, an ocean away from my family, my points of stability and unconditional love and comfort and constancy.  I’ll have my boyfriend---my partner in all of this---but the support and interactions that come with a romantic relationship differ so greatly from those offered by family.  Yet it makes me ponder something I’ve never before factored into my thoughts or decision making (sorry, Mom and Dad!):  the value of living close to family.  I’ve chosen the cities in which I’ve lived based on their worldliness, their amazing restaurants, their walkability, their job opportunities.  While the dynamics of family relationships have morphed as I've grown older (although having my dad show up with chicken soup when I'm sick will make my heart tingle even when I'm 50), the relationships themselves have been omnipresent.  Family, so consistently, blatantly there, has unintentionally slipped to the backburner for being there in physical form.

I don’t know where Zack and I are going to move when his graduate program ends in two years.  I don’t know how much at that point family will factor into our decisions after having experienced the other end---the being far after being so close.  Do you try to live near your family?  Or try to live far away, or not factor in it at all?  I’d love to hear your take.

I Say Goodbye, You Say Hello: A Facebook Story

By H. Savala Nolan I’m in the doctor’s waiting room. I’m on the couch during commercials. I’m waiting for my latte. I’m in bed, restless. I’m waiting for my boyfriend to get dressed. I’m in the train station. I’m lined up to board my flight. I idle, therefore, I Facebook.

In moments of quiet—moments I might use for serenity, to smell the scents and see the colors of the world around me—I grab my phone and tap the icon, a plain blue square with a friendly white “f” just slightly off center. Behold: my friends. I’m idle, but they are busy. They are fawning over baby animals, baying for blood because of politics, announcing spiritual truths, loafing in tropical sun, sitting down to the best meal ever, cataloging the day’s humdrum  triumphs and defeats, staring alluringly into the eye of a camera, getting engaged, having children, praying over dying aunts and granddads. Despite myself, and despite how over-stimulated, drained, or jealous  it can leave me, I log on. I can’t seem to help it.

Everyone is ambivalent about Facebook. How can we not be? Status updates—the meat of the log-on—do one of two things: elevate the boring, or degrade the profound. Both are bothersome. It exasperates me that some friends think hundreds of people hang on edge, craving  ruminations on how much they love coffee, every day. (And yet, the prosaic is the real juice of life, how we string our days together—why shouldn’t we honor it?) I’m uncomfortable when my friends announce the death of a relative with a stroke of text—silent, clinical, hovering in ether—transmitted to people who will read, dash off sympathy, and forget. (And yet, we know people all over the world. We can’t make 478 phone calls or address 478 letters. This is how we live now.)

But here is the real trouble with Facebook: I never talk to my best friends anymore. In high school, Louise and I sometimes chatted on the phone for 6 or 7 hours a night. We talked about seniors we pined for (their leather jackets and spiky hair and the pretty girls they dated). We talked about music (Green Day and Nine Inch Nails). We talked about diets (cabbage soup) and drinking (did we dare?) and what color to dye our hair (purple). Adulthood at 30-something renders that omnipresent intimacy impossible; she produces reality television, I practice law, we are busy and live 2,000 miles apart. But even in our roaring twenties, we still spoke almost daily. Now, after the entrenchment of Facebook, it is typical for us to go nearly a month without speaking. Recently, with aching disbelief, I realized that the sole reason I know anything about her life is because of her status updates, which tend to be pithy and unremitting, headlines refreshed every few hours as if she were a newspaper. But could that be true?  To test my theory, I blocked her from my newsfeed. A month passed. Radio silence, except for my birthday, when she called. But before that, I couldn’t tell you if she was alive or dead.

At first, confirming the fallow state of our friendship chagrined me. I felt wronged—by her. What sort of person has time to broadcast her whereabouts, food and beverage intake, disgruntled moments, workouts, and crowd-sourcing inquiries upward of a dozen times a day, but cannot find time to connect with her best friend, one on one? To be sure, this isn’t all Facebook. She and I hammer out resolutions when, periodically, I feel I’m single-handedly doing the work of friendship. Perhaps we are simply growing apart. I, of course, could have called her; but why would I? I had Facebook. And so our affinity for Facebook—the estranged, thoughtless intimacy of it—allowed the primary challenge in our incredibly important friendship to become to the substance.

Then, after a few weeks, something unexpected happened: the irritation waned, and I began to miss her. I began to miss her in a way I never did when following her every move and thought online. In fact, I couldn’t have missed her on Facebook: she was everywhere, always.

Yes, I missed her, with the fresh, affectionate curiosity that used to precede a phone call to say hello. And I realized that, despite the constant “updates,” I missed my other best friends, and some family members, too. I didn’t want the curated comic book of their lives; that’s what Keeping Up with the Kardashians is for. I wanted noise,  texture, and monogamy, not silence, a screen, and a stranger “liking” what I wrote. I wanted interjection. I wanted to hear laughter and sighs, and remember that I know some voices so well I can see the speaker’s facial expressions over the phone. I wanted to see, or at least recall, familiar bodies that take up real space. I wanted the moments of silence that come, they say, about every seven minutes in a conversation. And I wanted to hear my voice, too. I needed the grounding and fruition that comes from contact, not the bargain-basement copy that comes from interface.

So I blocked everyone I’m close to. It was a strangely anxious goodbye, as if I were strapping myself into a space shuttle, only perhaps to return. My  mom, my best friend, my boyfriend. All the inner circle, and the next-to-inner circle. Gone.

But suddenly present. Suddenly, again, real. Suddenly, again, in my awareness because they are not constantly in my face. Just like a fish can’t think about water, maybe we can’t truly contemplate—or properly love—people who are always in front of us in the most superficial ways. Good though it may be to “keep in touch” by knowing my brother-in-law ran four miles today, that news is the emotional equivalent of junk food. I don’t see my loved ones when I log on, and I feel a pang of, well, love. After a few days, I think, Hey, where are Jane and Quinn and Melissa and David? How are they? What are they doing these days? It’s like letting yourself get truly, empty-stomach, slightly-on-edge hungry; then you truly want to eat! If you graze all day, you never feel hunger, and you’re never satisfied by what you eat because your eating isn’t connected to satisfaction.

Now, if I want to know what’s up with my brother, I call. And I was surprised to discover that calling was scary. It turns out that I, a social butterfly, have developed a Facebook-induced shyness. Calling feels so forward, so direct, so daunting. But only for about a minute. Then you come to your senses. You give yourself an inward smack across the cheek, and snap out of it. Afraid to call my brother? Are you kidding? I’ve known him for 32 years, and we get along! What’s there to debate? Call. And I do. And we are, as in the old days, family. It feels great.

And there is a bonus, though it’s not one Facebook’s shareholders would be thrilled to know about: I log-on less. Much less. After all, what is there to see? The photographs of puppies that my Mom’s former best friend is currently into? The engagement news of people I never liked but was too meek to ignore when they requested my friendship? The wit and attitude as my cousin’s pals outdo each other’s comments? How entirely, intensely boring.

Especially when there is a city outside my window, and sunshine, and late-summer fruit, and music, and people. My friends, my family, and myself, to be seen and heard.

Lessons from the Hamptons...

Dearest Clara,

Summer has nearly come and gone---most people believe it ended this week.  But I still stand my ground, and will to the end, that autumn doesn’t really begin until September 21^st! So in my book, there are still summer days to enjoy in this next couple of weeks that bridge us to the cooler seasons.   People are right to some degree though, it is somehow not quite the same once you pass the Labor Day mark.

To celebrate summer’s last real weekend, we finally made a trip up to the Hamptons, on the New York Coast, visiting the friends we’ve been promising to see for two full summers now, and I’m so glad that we finally made it.  I had never been before, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was afraid that it would be a very long drive for a beach that would be different than what we’re used to---something crowded and full of everything we’re trying to get away from in the city---but it wasn’t that at all.  In fact, our weekend did nothing but exceed my expectations, and we’re already looking forward to that next summer invitation.  Here are a couple of things that I’ll keep in mind from this trip:

• Keep your eyes open:  Let’s face it, the Hamptons are a bit of a see and be seen kind of place.  I’m terrible at people-spotting---in Washington, senators, politicians, and world leaders pass me by nearly every day without my noticing, and celebrities in the Hamptons were no different.  If you keep your eyes open better than you mother, I bet you get some pretty cool people watching.
• Try everything on for size and find your niche:  I had mistakenly thought that “the Hamptons” were a singular destination, but it’s not so at all.  It’s a collection of small towns, each with their own distinct personality and crowd.  If it’s your first visit, give them all a try with an open mind and then settle in to the one that fits your own style.
• It’s windier on the water:  The beach alongside this coast is wide open, and the wind can pick up very quickly.  Bring layers and an extra hair elastic, and be careful as currents form in the cooler water.  But wind isn’t necessarily a bad thing, retreat to beat the heat here and who knows, you might even take a surfing lesson or two.
• Eat (and drink) local:  This little stretch of island is gifted with so much abundance, especially in the summertime, you can’t help but to want to take it all in.    Fruits . . . vegetables . . . lobster . . . fish . . . take advantage of all that’s here when you make your choices for what to make or what to pick off the menu.  Even the local rosé would give the south of France a little run for their euros.  It makes you feel more summery just having summer’s gifts right there.   Don’t be afraid to stop at the roadside stands. Those extra treats will come in handy when you find yourself interminably stuck in traffic on Route 27.
• Prepare to share:   The Hamptons are a more is merrier kind of place, just the way I like it.  There always seems to be room at a house for another overnight guest, room at the table for another couple to drop by, room for a few more on the beach blanket. If you’re staying at someone’s house, bring hostess gifts for more than you think.  Some parts of summer are best enjoyed with others and in this respect, the Hamptons nail it.

All my love,

Mom

Myanmar, A Land Of Pagodas (And Smiles)

I’m sitting on a plane flying from Yangon to Bangkok. My journey throughout Asia is almost over---in seventy-two hours I will be in Milan again, less money in my pockets, but certainly richer and more conscious than I was when I left Italy a month ago, unaware of all the things I was going to see and learn in the days ahead. I’m writing this piece on a ripped piece of paper. On the back, a list of do’s and don’ts in  Myanmar---some basic rules our guide gave us and that we were supposed to follow in order to behave respectfully in the country.  I’m wondering---did we do something wrong? Were we good and considerate guests? While I’m trying to retrace all the things that happened in the last 10 days in Myanmar, many images and stories come vividly to my mind.

“Accept or give things with your right hand. However, when you offer something to a monk, a nun or an elderly person, use both hands.”

I’ve always been curious about the way monks and nuns live. There are many different kinds of Buddhist monks. In Myanmar, all men are required to become monks at least twice in their lifetime---once when they are young and once when they are adults. So, while some children decide they want to be monks forever and stay in the monastery for good, some others opt for shorter terms, which can last from a few hours to a couple of weeks. Myanmar is a land of temples and pagodas. There are thousands of monasteries all over the country where men can retire and learn the basic principles of Buddhism. During this period of learning they leave everything behind and every morning wander from house to house in search for food. Once they return, they sort through the offerings. Some of the food is eaten straight away for breakfast. The rest is saved for the last meal of the day, which is normally at noon.

“Try to speak Burmese, the local language. Simple “hellos” and “thank yous” are  always greatly appreciated.”

Myanmar is also the land of smiles. Just by saying “mingalaba” (hello) or “chei-zu” (thank you) we got the biggest smiles we have ever seen. Despite a land rich in natural resources, from precious stones to natural gas, families in Myanmar are poor, and the average salary is between $60-100 a month. But no matter how much people make, they are always happy to offer you a cup of ginger tea, and fried peanuts and chickpeas with sesame seeds . . . so yummy!

“Remove your shoes before entering a private house and be ready to share and learn.”

One day, on our way from Bagan to Mount Popa, we stopped at a private property where a family of nine have been making candies and liquor out of palm trees for generations. Myanmar people are the best at using whatever resource nature has to offer. They cut the palm leaves, collect the drops in coconut shells, and boil the liquid until it becomes a paste. Before the paste dries, they make small balls of candies, which harden under the sunlight. The candies were delicious . . . I had so many of them that I think I got myself cavities! My husband and I really enjoyed the day, watching people work at their own pace, while sharing their family tales with complete strangers like us.  There was Kyi, who was intertwining bamboo and making hats and small purses. And then there was Htay, her husband, chewing tobacco leaves while boiling palm sugar and making liquor out of it. Grandma was all for the grandchildren, who were home from school for a holiday. They were running around, laughing out loud and screaming words unknown to us. But, even though we had no clue about what they were saying, we were sure of one thing---those were words of happiness, a universal language as sparkling as palm tree drops, which resonates whenever one has the capacity of hearing it.

Excerpt from Mandalay, by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"

    Come you back to Mandalay,

    Where the old Flotilla lay:

    Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?

    On the road to Mandalay,

    Where the flyin'-fishes play,

    An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

The Lighted Shore

By Rebecca D. Martin I didn't think it was worth wishing for---not for another couple years, at least. No, I'm not talking about finding my lost camera (I still hold out for that) or my daughter’s missing cloth diapers (I can live without those for a while longer yet). The camera and the diapers are casualties of our recent move. I am certain they are smashed right up against each other in the depths of the unlikeliest box possible in the back corner of the basement where we won't find them till we move again next summer.

No, it was simpler than finding a picture taker or a stack of bum covers, and much more fleeting. And, for that, all the more precious. My daughter, my dear, contented daughter, played quietly and happily for an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon. Perfect girl. Perfect day. My husband and I lazed on the sofa and watched an entire episode of our favorite British detective show. I had one brief moment of guilt over letting my child flip her own book pages alone on the other side of the room for so long, but don't worry; it passed. I settled under the blanket and immersed myself in imaginative renderings of World War II England, courtesy of the BBC.

When our daughter was born, after those first couple months that launched us so far onto the further shore of parenthood we could hardly catch the smallest glimpse of the coastline we'd left behind - after all that, I really only missed one thing: Saturday mornings.

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard describes the process of waking up and the

"pictures you dream as the final wave heaves you up on the sand to the bright light and drying air. You remember pressure, and a curved sleep you rested against, soft, like a scallop in a shell. But the air hardens your skin; you stand; you leave the lighted shore to explore some dim headland, and soon you're lost in the leafy interior, intent, remembering nothing."[1]

I know this well. Those pictures you dream, that lighted shore, the dim headland encroaching. "I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing," Dillard says. Me, too. I used to wake up in the morning and hurry to my writing desk, hoping not to be distracted before I could catch in a net of words the heightened creative thoughts from that fleeting, dreamlike shore before they got lost in the leafy interior of the conscious day. Sometimes I didn't even stop to make coffee. I'd spend an hour in front of the computer and finally come to, realizing I was ravenous.

Some friends of mine wake up differently. One says she comes fully awake the instant she's left sleep behind, clear-headed and ready to think, talk, or do. Another, a roommate during college dorm days, used to all but leap out of her high lofted bed, greeting each morning with a bound of energy and restraining herself mightily from greeting me in like manner. Because, awake in those early moments, I was still on the far side of the headland, imagination heightened, caught up in my shining morning thinkings. Addressing me was dangerous; that roommate spoke in the early hours at the risk of our very friendship. She fast learned a quiet patience with me.

The bright light Dillard describes, the misty minutes between sleep and waking, those used to be my favorite moments of the day. Those were the times my imagination ran most wild, my body felt most rested and comfortable, my creative mind thought best. On most of the Saturdays I can remember in my adult life, back when I had the luxury, I stretched out those moments as long as possible. Especially when Monday through Friday saw me at work at 8:00a.m. A slow-waking Saturday morning was always a gift.

So even before our daughter was born, I had some idea what I was going to be losing. But still, it came as a shock, a cup of cold water in the face. I was thrust into the leafy interior on the alarum note of one long, hungry wail, and the Saturdays I'd heretofore known were lost in the arrival of that other---that far better---gift. That first year, nursing her in those early minutes that used to be mine, all mine, only mine, I mourned the loss.

I've gotten used to it now. Most weekends, I barely give a thought to what Saturdays used to be like, and, somewhere along the way, I've learned to revel in the new normal: the three of us sitting on the floor together, munching granola, drinking coffee and tea, playing with puzzle pieces and books and matchbox cars. Feeding pretend cereal to Pooh Bear. Carrying disparate toys from one room to another. This is a good life. These, too, are shining morning moments.

But I'll tell you, when my husband and I get to lounge on the sofa for an hour and a half---an hour and a half!!---well. Those old, intensely creative writing mornings may be gone for now, but watching an entire movie in the middle of the day, uninterrupted . . . that doesn't fall too far short.

Today's a different day: Monday. My husband works long and hard at his office, and the two of us girls are on our own. I can tell it's a one-nap day, so I won't get in as much writing time or me time as I sometimes do. We'll fill up our minutes with other, more active things. The grocery store, FedEx, Target. A stroll in the late summer heat, play time, dinner prep. Once my husband gets home and we eat and clean up, maybe he'll sit on the floor with our daughter while I dig through boxes and drawers---again---in hopes of finding the camera before we leave for vacation next week. I’m hoping for one long, lighted shore of a beach holiday, and I’d like to capture some of those moments on film.

But I'm learning the camera's not actually necessary, nor is that indulgent, slow morning wake-up time. For now, an afternoon like Sunday's is enough. Yes, that memory will be enough to last me through many early-woken Saturdays to come. That, and the hope that maybe, some Sunday, it'll happen again. I've got another BBC episode saved in my Netflix queue on the off-chance. Till then, Pooh Bear and my daughter eagerly await my attentions.

[1] Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Harper's Magazine Press, New York: 1974. p.2

My Story: Epilogue

My mother came to visit me in early spring, nearly two years after I was married, just a few months before I finished my last college classes. In the previous four years, I had only scraped by three years’ worth of credits. I knew that the end of my classes would not bring a walk across the stage or a diploma to hang on the wall for me. But I also knew, deep in my heart, that it was the right time. It was time for me to be done with school for the present; to focus my energy on taking care of myself and keeping things running smoothly at home. I had learned that it was possible for me to go to school part-time—but when I did, I found I couldn’t do anything else. Keeping one or two classes each semester was a grueling effort for me, demanding all of my time, attention, and energy, and leaving absolutely nothing left of me when I was finished.

It had been a difficult decision to make, but the raw grief that I had felt two years before, when I first realized that graduation might not be in the cards for me, had mostly dissipated. I was tired now, worn down by the endless barrage of health problems and the pressure to keep up with what should have been a light load. I was ready to be done, ready to have the energy to explore other parts of myself again.

That week, as my mother and I sat together at my kitchen table, she asked me if I felt like I had had a “good college experience.”

The question took me by surprise. I had certainly not had a typical college experience; after my first few semesters, I’d had to pull more and more away from the rigor of the academic environment I loved. By necessity, I’d had to learn to find my own identity in something other than the world of scholarship. I’d spent the past two years discovering how much there was to love in my newfound role as a homemaker; I’d learned to take satisfaction in keeping a house of order, and to approach a new recipe with the same zeal I’d previously felt for literary criticism.

I sat at the table, the silver afternoon light of late March diffusing through the windows, and thought about it.

“Yes,” I said finally. “I have.”

Then I added that focus of the last two years had certainly not been a quintessential college experience, but that they had still been good. Very good, in fact.

“I feel… fulfilled,” I said, realizing as I said it that it was true.

Somehow, in the slow passing of days and weeks and years, fulfillment had crept into my heart. I realized, sitting there at the kitchen table, that I was content—that even though the path my life had taken was so different than the one I had expected, I was still happy. My days felt full of beauty; I had learned that even something as simple as loading the dishwasher could feel meditative, fulfilling, if I only opened my eyes.

So yes, I thought. Typical or not, my college experience has been a good one.

.   .   .   .   .

It’s been more than two years since that conversation with my mom. Like everyone, my life is filled with ups and downs, and I still have far too many moments of doubt and insecurity. And yet, the contentment remains. The fulfillment remains. I have come to love this life I’m living, even if it’s not the one I had planned for myself. It’s a continual process, a journey of discovery and delight.

And when I look back on it, even with all the bumps, I can’t deny:

I’m glad to have had the ride.

On Time

Since we’ve made the decision to move, everything seems to be moving at a quicker pace. Actually, it could have started moving at a quicker pace when I found out I was pregnant for the second time; an allusion to what will come of two children underfoot. Like any good holiday weekend, we are spending time with family. Yesterday, as the grill was smoking, and music was playing (Nina Simone) my dad was in the process of fixing the old screen door. Charley loves my dad, his Pop-Pop, and was right there with him, with his own kiddie toolbox, a weathered paint-chipped yellow tackle-box my dad had given him. He is barely as tall as Pop-Pop’s knee, and took out his little plastic pliers, to match my dad’s real metal ones, to twist the door frame. There was much grunting and production involved. And I stood just inside the porch watching them thinking, These days are numbered, and it almost made me cry. Something about being a parent makes you see time more clearly, see that it will pass, that it is a constant. This is a comfort for stressful periods, when you think you can’t make it any further, and a sadness for happy periods, when you wish the night would never end. It’s striking me much more with this second pregnancy. I see my husband and our life together stretching infinitely ahead of us. We have so many memories yet to make, traditions to start. I want to make renting a beach house every summer a tradition, we’ve only talked about it for several years! We have our ritual of only $20 gifts for each other at Christmas, a chance to be creative and thrifty. And I see my past with my family, all the memories already made, history that won’t be forgotten. So many family vacations and apple picking trips, beach days, and snow days, and all the days in between. I am standing in the middle wondering, How did I get here?

There is truth to that Talking Heads song:

You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? 

But perhaps I am feeling overly nostalgic because my brother, my LITTLE brother will soon graduate college, and when we visited a quaint Pennsylvania college the other weekend, and had lunch at a hipster café, I felt old. More than the extra pregnancy weight and the tiredness of chasing a toddler, I looked at the young college girls, so oblivious to anything else but themselves, and thought ‘I don’t see myself there anymore’. They were giggling, wearing their sweatpants to breakfast just rolling out of bed at 11 am, ordering their omelets with only egg whites, and nobody looked twice at my toddler running around.

I am scared of the day when weddings and births turn into funerals, and wonder when that day will come. When it does, there will be an irreplaceable chasm that opens up. I know there will be comfort in my own family, my roots I am just starting to set down. But I will wonder how I made it that far, and how I will carry on.

A Back-to-School Tribute

Before each school year begins, I try to center myself. I organize supplies, I write lesson plans, I memorize my schedule. These sort of tasks, however, aren’t enough and I always find myself reflecting on teaching itself, in the broadest possible sense. I came to teaching late. My first foray into a classroom in a role other than student was when I began my graduate program the summer I turned twenty-five. I felt old, and compared to many of my fellow students, I was old. One of the first things we were asked as we began our studies was to think about the teachers who had impacted us and why that was.

It’s a simple question, nearing cliché. For me, it was easy to answer. My high school Latin teacher, Miss Ede Ashworth, made me crave her praise. I was not the sort of student who yearned for a close relationship with a teacher, or to be pushed to my limits, or to be made to cry by a profound lesson a la Dead Poets Society. I was jaded in high school, arrogant about my self-perceived intelligence, and wary of adults, particularly teachers. Miss Ashworth’s skill and style penetrated my overconfidence and my (probably highly-irritating) cynicism. Her brilliance came from being able to do this without my ever feeling as though she was trying to do exactly that.

I should point out here that Miss Ashworth is a highly-lauded teacher, winning awards that have acknowledged and rewarded her preternatural skill in the classroom.  She managed to bring out the best in so many students, and she did it without seeming to modify her approach or system for any individual learners in the room.  This is nearly unheard of in conversations about good teaching where the norm is to consider the diversity of learners in a classroom and differentiate instruction as needed to reach as many students of possible. This was not necessary for Miss Ashworth---like an elite athlete, she was unfazed by changes in routine, student behavior, or fire drills, and managed to execute well every single class period.

She was teaching Latin, a language so regimented that it can turn off even the most academically-minded student. She required us to make flashcards for every single vocabulary word we learned – a requirement I hated because I didn’t feel as though I needed them.  However, other students made great use of flashcards, and I learned later that while I may not have needed to use the flashcards myself, she had cagily instilled in me the discipline of careful review and preparation. This discipline was key to my perseverance while studying Latin in college.

She told us little about herself, leaving an aura of mystery around her that my classmates and I attempted to shatter through the sort of speculation (“do you think Miss Ashworth ever watches television?) usually reserved for elementary school students. She was always impeccably prepared for class, never seemed to be absent, and could be found before and after school for extra help or to answer questions.

When I did my student teaching, my cooperating teacher told me that he believed there were two core qualities that every teacher must have: she should love the subject matter and appreciate the joys and challenges of working with young people. Miss Ashworth’s love for Latin was palpable---she drove us all over the state to participate in the Junior Classical League, and she ran a yearly Foreign Language Week at school that was driven primarily by her sheer enthusiasm. She had us do art projects about the Romans, she had us travel all over the tri-state area to museums to see relevant exhibits, and she made sure that her students took opportunities to share their knowledge of the language with others. And, even more importantly, while she had very high standards for both academic work on behavior, I remember not one moment when she seemed disdainful when we were rowdy, unfocused, or both.

When I was a senior, I was the only student that year to enroll in Advanced Placement Latin. Before the year began, I wondered what it would be like to be in a one-on-one setting. Would it be odd? I was nervous, because part of what Miss Ashworth did so well was treat all of us remarkably warmly, without ever creating too much familiarity. It ended up (unsurprisingly) being the best learning experience of my high school years. Her gentle guidance as I tried to decide which college attend (never saying what I should or should not do) helped steady me. The intensity of the AP curriculum and how desperately I wanted to please her led me to work incredibly hard and reap the rewards.

Thus, as I begin each new school year, I think back to what it was like to be in Miss Ashworth’s classes. I am not yet a fraction of the teacher that she is, and likely never will be, but her example often inspires me to think more critically about how I am approaching both my students and the subject matter. I ask myself what she might do in a particular situation, and I realize now how much work, dedication, and attention to detail went into all of those seemingly effortless lessons. Each time I sneak in explaining a Latin root into one of my classes, I feel the same old excitement that I used to feel in the windowless classroom that she made crackle with language. Although I had no idea at the time that I would ever be a high school teacher, I am forever grateful that I was able to spend forty-eight minutes every day for four years watching her work.

II. paris

Leah and I have a week off from our classes at the American College Program of Provence, and we have met my friend Will in Paris. It is night, the October streets are full of people, and after drinks in the Latin Quarter we are going to see the Eiffel Tower. The métro is still running, shuffling back and forth across the City of Light those accidental Parisian revelers who are not even aware that it is Halloween, something of a peculiarity to non-Americans. I haven't been trick-or-treating since I was a kid, and don't particularly like the drunk college Halloween parties that have recently marked the holiday, but for some reason I miss just having the possibility of disguising myself this year.

The tower is still blocked from us by the tawny apartment buildings, and Leah turns to me as we prepare to cross one last street before our view is clear. She has never seen the Eiffel Tower before, never even been to Paris, and the excitement reflects in her eyes like the twinkling, spinning lights that are illuminating the city. As someone who tends to keep something of a perpetually calm exterior, I like how openly excited she gets about these kinds of things.

We are about to take our first step onto the empty road when a Frenchman on rollerblades zooms in front of me from the right. And then another, and another. Soon there is a whole crowd of them whizzing by under the golden light of the street lamps, some wearing spandex shorts, others in helmets, one is still in a suit and clutching his briefcase from work just a handful of hours before. And then there are costumes, too, lots of them for the holiday. I catch sight of a man dressed like a sandwich, and the slices of cardboard bread are so wonderfully out-of-nowhere and unexpected that I feel a pang for back home. Everyone dresses up there.

The whooshing sound of plastic wheels on cool pavement dies away as the last of the rollerbladers continue into obscurity down the street. We can finally cross, and do. We drink Heinekens by the tower---just as tall as Leah thought it would be, and glittering---and Will talks about American things in his loud, carrying voice. I find myself thinking fondly about that man dressed as a sandwich. Then we go home. Back to the hostel.

Photo by Melissa Delzio on Flickr, Creative Commons License

The DIY Illusion

Long before Pinterest, which seems to have become the ultimate repository of DIY dreams, I was cursed with the insatiable desire to surround myself with beautiful and interesting things and to announce proudly to the world that “I did it myself.” This urge to emulate the creations and achievements of others extends even beyond the realm of tactile objects to skills and feats as well. When I visit a museum, I can’t help but think, “I will return next week and copy the masters!” When I discover that someone has written a poem a day for a year, I think, “What a great idea! I should do it too!”

This impulse has resulted in a number of false starts. I seem to recall joining one of those 356 groups on Flickr and subsequently following through for about three of 356 days. After reading Eat, Pray, Love, I bought an “Easy Italian Reader” and a yoga mat, both of which have seen embarrassingly little use since their addition to my collection of very-useful-yet-unused self-improvement tools.

I know I’m not the only one. Tutorials, how-tos, and advice columns make up some of the most popular information on the internet. We want to know, in 500 words or less, how to build our own websites, sweep own our hair up into classy side chignons, and paint striking works of modern art for our homes.

Don’t get me wrong—I love reading this stuff, and I love writing it too. I am a strong advocate for homemade food and handmade things and tools for self-improvement. But I often find that I don’t give enough consideration to the “yourself” aspect of DIY inspiration. I so easily forget to account for where I'm starting from. I see a hair tutorial and try to ignore the fact that my hair is the frizzy, chaotic alter ego of the long, silky locks in the photo. I see “Easy Italian Reader” and realize much later that I still can’t read it if my Italian vocabulary is limited to food terms.

This is not to say that we should all abandon our DIY dreams and leave the doing and creating and achieving to the experts and professionals. There’s certainly nothing wrong with gathering inspiration from the creations and achievements and adventures of others. But if I hope to cultivate motivation from the things that inspire me, rather than disappointment at my failure to replicate them, perhaps a bit more self-reflection is in order.

The DIY illusion is not the idea that we can do things ourselves. Every piece of inspiration we encounter broadens our sense of what’s possible. There’s certainly room in this world for more faith in what each of us is capable of. The illusion to be wary of, however, is that we can do new and unfamiliar things quickly and effortlessly, if only we had the right tools or the time to watch a five-minute instructional video.

So the next time I file away a glamorous photo or add a new how-to book to my wishlist, I hope to take some time to differentiate between inspiration and aspiration. Often what’s most inspiring about beautiful creations and fantastic achievements is not the glamorous photo of the end result to which we may aspire but the story of the person or people behind it, the combination of time, talent, learning, commitment, failure, and perseverance that made what’s possible real.

Lessons from a conference...

Dearest Clara,

We’ve been on the go a lot, both with and without you, these last few weeks.  Most recently, I was in New York again, but this time for a conference.  I seem to have a lot of those---some for my day job, and a lucky few just for my own interests.  Conferences can be a little intimidating, a bit like the first day of school.  And when those presenting and attending are people whom you’ve long admired and want to learn from, you always wonder what your place is.  You wonder if you will be brave enough to talk to people.  And you’ll always wonder what you’ll say as you work up your nerve.   These are the things that have helped me in these kinds of events:

• Bring lots of business cards: It’s a great way to break the ice and it’s a great way to have something to talk about.  And bring more than you think you’ll need---you’ll give them about because you meet people, because you have to leave one with your luggage, because you’ll want to leave behind your contact information, or enter to win something.  Just have lots---I promise you’ll use them.
• Know something about those speaking: They took the time to prepare a presentation, so take the time to prepare and learn something about them.  That way, if you have the opportunity to meet them or sit next to them at part of the event, you already have a few things you can go to when making conversation.
• Remember most people---even if they don’t show it---are just as nervous: Don’t be intimidated.  Everyone else is outside of their comfort zone too.  Introduce yourself, bring others in if you see they want to be part of the conversation, and don’t sweat it if a conversation doesn’t go the way you planned.  Try to be an even more friendly and approachable version of yourself, and be inclusive.
• It’s okay to take a break: Sometimes conferences and events can become overwhelming---they’re full of people we don’t know, and hopefully new ideas we haven’t seen.  It’s tough to be always “on,” and the days can become long.  It’s okay to duck out for a few minutes into a corner or quiet space, or even take an hour back at the hotel to decompress and reset.
• Go to more than one! Believe it or not, these things get easier over time, and when you’re a repeat visitor, you always know someone too, which makes for smoother sailing.  All of the sudden, you become the person that others come to see.  A few events a year where you’re exposed to new people and new ideas are good to stimulate your own ideas---choose wisely but make the investment!

Now back to the sessions!

All my love,

Mom

“I’m just trying to change the color on your mood ring”

A few Christmases ago my mom slipped a mood ring among the chocolate coins and trinkets in my stocking. She gave my husband the color key.  Brilliant, I know. I consider myself to be a fairly chill girl, but even with all my zen, I am still sometimes overtaken by wild emotions, by bad moods, by the little things that get in the way. I’m proud to say that it happens less frequently now than at any previous time in my life.  Somewhere along the way, I made a decision.  I decided that I control my emotions, rather than them controlling me.

Sounds like a crazy self-help book right?  I know.  Put into words it seems silly, but the simplicity seems to work for me, enough that by now it has become habit and I don’t have to repeat the silly words to myself.

When something I can’t control upsets my equilibrium and threatens to send me into a funk, I make a conscious decision to not let it get to me.  I hype myself up, metaphorically dust my shoulders off (to quote a second rap lyric), and step forward, leaving the drama of a mood swing behind me.  And it works . . . most of the time.

Something as simple as choosing to look forward, choosing not to dwell in negatives, almost always gets me back to center. Sometimes though, I need an extra step: a cat-nap with headphones, a happy nail polish color, a pint of ice cream, a date with Aaron Sorkin.  Whatever external action perks up my mood.  And it works . . . most of the time.

But then there are those moments, the imagined slights, the could’ve/would’ve/should’ve, and the worst, knowing I somehow shortchanged myself.  That, for me, can be the start of a spiral.  I don’t scream or yell (although perhaps I should). When I get down on myself, it’s internal.  I second guess everything I do.  I can’t find the right words to express myself.  I almost literally feel outside of my body; disconnected from my soul. I can feel my skin crawl.  I sound crazy to my own ears.  Now a simple nap with an Oasis album or a bottle of OPI isn’t going to cut it. The only cure is time, usually a good night sleep.

You may have surmised that I was similarly waylaid this week.  I didn’t do my best on a project and it ate away at me for a little while.  I’ve avoided the mood swing, but I’m still a bit down.  And so I’m asking: How do you turn a bad mood around?

What August Means Now

By Carrie Allen Tipton For those invested in academic pursuits, August marks time like no other month. It speaks of newness and transition in a way that other folks more readily associate with January and its resolutions, or October and its changing leaves, or March and its budding limbs. August’s gift (or curse) of hyper-awareness of the passage of time blesses (or afflicts) tiny kindergartners no less than aged professors. Whether you are on the making or receiving end of a syllabus or book list in the upcoming educational year, the month delineates for all school-oriented persons the End of Something and the Beginning of Something Else.

As a student, this weird blurry month, neither fully summerish nor yet fully schoolish, meant shopping for clothes, finding color-coded folders, looking for the precise metric specifications of binders stated on the supply list, searching for a new and cooler (is there such a thing?) lunchbox. In the university years there were the added tasks of purchasing football tickets and meal plans. After many years of dutifully carrying out these sorts of instructions, I became a professor and began giving them to others. The road to this position was long and many times I have questioned whether it was, in that extremely charged yet vague term which indexes a host of existential presuppositions, “worth it.” Suffice it to say that it required many years of very long hours of single-minded focus and a willingness to live below the poverty line for the better part of a decade. Fine. It was over now, and I was professoring. In this new capacity, my old friend August meant screening books for readings lists, determining test schedules, building online class modules, anxiously checking electronic enrollment in the hopes that a course wouldn’t be canceled, dodging onerous committee work, applying for travel funding, and plotting out research goals.

For twenty-eight years, then, some version or other of me was essentially still Going To School every fall, and August meant what it always had: a physical and cognitive return to the educational premises. And then all of a sudden this year August stopped meaning anything like it once did. In late spring, I became pregnant with our first child. Let me, as I used to say to my students during lectures when an idea required further explanation, hit the pause button here. If this were an academic article, you would now be treated to a lengthy footnote about how I’d always hoped that if I ever had a child, I could stay home with it until it was school-aged. This was a simple and uncomplicated desire that could afford to remain simple and uncomplicated as long as it was theoretical. While there was no viable life-partner in the picture, such a decision was lodged (like so many of my academic ruminations) in the realm of abstract thought, and so it stayed for all of my adult life until I met my future husband two years ago, a mere year into my professorial career. And based on my longstanding desire, prior to our marriage, we agreed that I would stay home with the wee ones if wee ones ever materialized, at least in their early years. I would try freelance writing, editing, and perhaps some online teaching.

It would make a lot of sense, we figured, since I was quite unhappy as a professor and earned proportionately little money for my trouble. Pace Anne-Marie Slaughter, whose insightful article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” appeared in the July/August 2012 issue of The Atlantic, but the thought of trying to have it all has always seemed to me quite exhausting. I just wanted some of it, and the part of it that I wanted changed as I walked through different seasons of life. So the decision was in place long before the baby ever was. It was still abstract and simple and uncomplicated, until the day in early April when two drugstore tests set the pre-arranged plan into motion. As I began the process of disentangling myself from a tenure-track job at my university, I felt liberated from unfulfilling employment, eager to spend the fall months prior to the baby’s arrival immersed in my beloved writing, and proud for being willing to run screaming from the ivory tower after three years of soul-searching that showed it to be an ill fit for me. I still do feel those things, and harbor no golden nostalgia for the frustrations of the career path I left. But what I do harbor is a giant question mark about who I am now, especially while my daughter is still an “inside baby,” and who I will be in the remaining months of her gestation, and who I will become as she emerges, and how we will become something together. Abstraction, simplicity, and lack of complication are rapidly eroding as I find myself in the midst of a new kind of August, and I have had to learn all over again what it means this year.

So far it has meant knowing, for the first time in my life, the months spanned by peach season, and that early August represented the final window of opportunity for capitalizing on the soft round spheres. I made a peach ricotta tart and did not make a syllabus. It has meant starting yoga classes, in the middle of the day, to help with my achy joints and to communicate with my girlie, my changing positions a sort of Morse code telegraphing her to be strong and peaceful and that I will try to be strong and peaceful for her. I sat in a roomful of people with legs crossed on rubber mats and did not sit in a roomful of people in pre-semester meetings. I measured for and ordered drapes and marched through Ikea looking for mounting hardware. I put up sheer taupe curtains in our living room and did not put books on an office bookshelf. I wrote and wrote and wrote and did not aim to produce a single article intended for a peer-reviewed journal. I am not sad, but August is feeling weird.

An entire book has been written about the difficulties and joys of either combining motherhood and academia or leaving the latter for the former, so I should have known that August wouldn’t sit right this time around. Reading Mama PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life assured me that I wasn’t crazy for feeling dazed disorientation as I walked out of the halls of academia into the blazing sunlight of other paths. Of course it made sense that I was losing my emotional footing in the bright light of August, which every other year meant that I should be walking into the university instead of away from it. I still can’t see quite where I am headed and am only accepting, day by day, what this August means. To borrow the phrase of an incomparably greater wordsmith, T.S. Eliot, “in my end is my beginning.” August has always at its heart represented new beginnings for me, and although something large and weighty has come to an end, many other things have now begun. And when I think of this, I think that perhaps, after all, this August is not so very unlike the ones that have come before.

window boxes

[gallery link="file"] When it comes to bringing a bit of the country into your city life, there's not much that does it better than a window box. Perched somewhere between public space and private space, a window box offers something pretty for folks streetside as well as a welcome view for those inside looking out. I'm especially fond of the range of window boxes that you can find on a walk around the block. Sometimes they're lush and full, sometimes they're utterly abandoned, and still other times they're completely accidental, just vines and leaves and no box at all. Here, a few shots from our neighborhood.

On Being Unmarried

The assumption was that I would go with him.  The whole time that Zack was filling out his applications; that we were reading and rereading his submission essays; that we were laughing about ending up in Tempe or Boston or Pasadena-–-the assumption was that I would go with him.   Two years earlier, he had left San Francisco to help me pursue my dreams in New York City.  Now we were both ready for a new adventure, a global roll of the dice, letting fate and admissions officers decide where we would land.  On the day he would hear back from his first choice school in London early that March morning, his whole body was shaking as he clicked open the email.  “I got in,” he said, his eyes telling me and questioning me at the same time.  “I got in.”  In my mind, my bags were already packed. And then the government stepped in.  I’d assumed that, with my freelance job, I could simply pop over to Europe whenever my tourist visa for the UK expired.  A quick search online proved me wrong.  On a tourist visa, I would be allowed to stay in the UK for six months out of every twelve.  Period, or as the Brits say, full stop.  I looked at the screen despairingly, picturing seeing my boyfriend for only half of every year, of being unsettled and without a real home to call my own for the next two.  We had our relationship to consider; we had my mental health.  We had, perhaps most importantly, a very needy cat.

At this point in the story, my friends and family often ask why Zack and I didn’t just get married.  It’s a fair question-–-we’ve been dating for almost five years and still actually like each other.  We talk about the future as a statement, not a question, and split holidays between our family’s houses.  It would’ve been an easy visa to get, the only kind of romantic relationship that, for better or worse, is accepted without question around this country and the world.

Yet.

When I get married, I want it to be because there was a moment where a man-–-my man-–-looked at me and decided he couldn’t foresee a life without me.  I want to get married because my partner and I are ready not to build a family-–-kids, in my opinion, have little to do with marriage-–-but be a family, just the two of us as a unit, together.  As a fairly pragmatic person, there’ve been too many events in my life that have taken place for the sake of convenience.  Zack and I moved in together after six months because his lease ended and it was cheaper.  I spent years wondering when I would have made that choice naturally, if it were left as simply a choice to make.  I don’t want my marriage to be like that.

I’m proud to announce that Zack and I are happily unmarried partners.  Thanks to the state of New York, we now have a document that declares us in all of our unmarried glory.  It means we’ve been living together, in a serious relationship, for at least two years.  It means I can ride in an ambulance with him, and that’s about it.  I don’t have access to his healthcare (national health care in UK, here I come!).  We can’t file tax returns together, he doesn’t get access to my money or I to his, and, if we choose to, either of us can dissolve our partnership with the click of a mouse on an online form.  It’s exactly enough to get me a visa to go to London, so that my partner and I can continue to live our lives together, happily unmarried.  There’s plenty of time for the rest later.

YWRB: Truth

By Amanda Page I will always choose truth.

Even now, years past slumber party angst and antics, I prefer the subjective, nuanced, very dangerous truth.

In my youth, truth was confession. I'd offer up my flaws, my mistakes, my humiliations. My sin from simply being human---those were the only truths available. Certainly, I was full to the brim with that type of truth.  I had plenty of that type of truth to spare. I believed in offering it up, chasing it away, making it leave my body through my mouth and be judged by others. I didn't want it as my own.

As I've aged, I've witnessed maturity in my truth. My truth is no longer an open wound. It has healed, slowly, through years of claiming itself. My truth is owned. I do not borrow it. I simply believe it.

It differs in eyes that aren't mine. If I were to offer it up, then you might see a shade darker or lighter than what I insist is present. There is such a thing as a true red, but I might think it's crimson while another chooses firetruck or candy apple. If I decide my true red is the red of flames and fire, then that, my friend, is the truth I choose once again.

The truth doesn't expose us. It doesn't excuse us or even explain us.

We don't need a game to reveal it.

Although, the game might build a friendship. It might offer insight into someone unexpected. It might twist your truth until you see it take a different shape. It's still your truth.

Dare to own it.

Finding Home

My husband and I are nomads. A fun game on a quiet Friday evening involves, “If you could live anywhere, where would you live?” Answers have included large cities, various countries. The answers have surprised us, terrified us, and comforted us. Then for a bonus round, we choose which furniture we would take. I suppose this has shown that we really hate the majority of our furniture. Especially the couch we bought for $50 from a woman off Craig’s List in Seattle. Although I liked her; she had two rowdy boys, and lived in a run down little cape cod in what turned out to be a fairly expensive area of town. Being a nomad is harder when you are a parent, and own a dog. Rentals don’t want you. Everywhere seems too expensive, and then there is a whole other emotional element. The biggest differences we have had in parenting is our perception of it. Becoming a mother brings out your hidden desires and biases. Who knew I could never live in a split level (gag)? Or that he likes cities and apartments, but couldn’t live in them with two kids and a dog? Or that the random homeless guy on our street would scare me so much more once I was pushing a stroller? Giving birth opens up so many hidden vulnerabilities in you.

We are looking for home. I constantly wonder, does everyone else go through this? This constant search for the place where the best parts of their childhood and adult selves converge? Are we just over-thinking it? Ever since we moved back to Florida, we both knew that it wouldn’t be permanent. Being pregnant with a second child now, makes me remember aspects about my own childhood. We talk about our favorite things. So many of mine revolve around the seasons. There was apple picking in the fall, and pies to be made. Pumpkins, and chilly October evenings perfect for a light jacket and a fire. Snow, and sledding, ice skating, trips to Chicago. He remembers big family gatherings, being close to his cousins, and the smell of the country: “Kind of gross, but nostalgic too.” We both ache for home. And then these things need to combine with our adult biases. We like good organic food, strong coffee, interesting people to hang out with. We are looking for all the best parts of a city, without the city prices. Does such a place even exist?

We’ve started to look at houses in his home town, a small middle of nowhere town in Pennsylvania. It’s quiet, and people live there forever, including most of his family. Driving around at night, the streets are silent, the streetlights hazy. It’s the kind of place where people rarely lock their doors. I didn’t know places like it still existed. And the houses, oh my, the houses themselves are enough to overcome the small town-ness of it. Great big 1800’s houses with period details, hulking doorways, towering ceilings. Houses with a history. Houses I could write my novel in (creative people work better in places with higher ceilings).

We have discovered that we are emotional real estate buyers. To love a house is more than the sum of its parts. It’s the feeling at the front door, finding all the best hiding spots for hide and go seek. It’s all those little quirky features that make it yours. I grew up on Lake Michigan in a cold windy town in Northern Indiana, in a drafty house built in the 1930’s. It had a laundry chute that ran down to the basement, and a drop down ironing board in the kitchen, inside a narrow little cabinet. My parents sold that home years ago, but the second they found a house in Florida with an ironing board just like it, they fell in love. Sometimes it’s all the little things that you remember. It doesn’t matter that I have never seen my mother iron on it, although I did many times as a child in Indiana, it’s the memory of it all.

But tell me, what is home to you? A smell? A memory? Have you found it, or are you eternally searching?

The End is the Beginning

by Trina McNeilly Is the end really the end or is it just the beginning?  It’s arguable.  So much so, that I argue with myself on the subject on a regular basis.   The end of what, you ask?  I suppose that could make all of the difference, but, no not really.   The end of a relationship. The end of a job.  The end of a season.  The end of dream.  The end of your sanity.   Sometimes, I feel like I’m at the end of everything, although it probably appears to others that I am not at the end of anything.  You know, the end of my rope, all I can take, all out of options, no where to go from here, that kind of thing.  That kind of end.

It’s the frequent and regular kind of end that nags us all from time to time.  This kind of end tries to befriend some more than others.  And lately, I seem to be one of them.

I am at one of those ends.  And I’m standing at the edge of end squinting my eyes for the smallest bit of beginning.  I’ve always been able to see beginnings, pretty clearly even.  But this time, my tired eyes are straining---straining in the search for a speck.  If I get a glimpse, I’ll be good.  At least that is what I tell myself.

I’ll stare down that speck of a beginning, that small piece of hope and I won’t take my eyes off of it.  I’ll try my best to catch it and put it in my pocket.  But than a beginning can never be hidden for long.

All beginnings must start with an end. And I think the end that I am at is my childhood.  I know, strange words and an even stranger idea, coming from an almost 35-year-old mother of four.  But the truth is, I’ve only ever felt like me.  And the me I’ve always seen, when I walk past the mirror or hear myself in my head, is the 10 year old freckle-kissed kid, with a twinkle in her eye and plan up her sleeve.  A girl who spent her days taking on the neighborhood by way of her royal blue 10 speed and splashing away any small concerns in the backyard pool.  I had nothing to worry about except the plan I had for the next day or perhaps the rest of the summer.

I only ever wanted to grow up so I could be a school bus driver, try out for the Mickey Mouse Club, get my license, have a boyfriend, wear makeup, and grow boobs---all letdowns and disappointments concluded by age 16 . . . which led me back to the notion that being a kid is a way better deal.

But I grew up in the way that we all do.  That is, in the way that we are supposed to.  I got married, got a job, and had kids.  And yet, although the mirror, daily, shocks me into reality, somehow, on the inside I still feel like my 10 year old self.

I have been waiting and I suppose just expecting that one day, someday, I’d wake up and feel like the adult that I surely should be.  All of my Oprah watching days only led me to believe, and rightfully expect, that my 30’s would gift me with a new sense of self.  Every 30-something on the show from movie stars, regular plain people, to Oprah herself said over and again that once they hit their 30’s they suddenly felt comfortable in their own skin.  They knew who they were, what they wanted, who they were not, and what they did not want.  The self-assured weren’t afraid to speak up for themselves and almost couldn’t care less what other people thought about them anymore.  It was as if this confidence of ease magically took over their former unsure selves and no decision was a hard decision at this point because they just knew . . . knew themselves and knew what to do and certainly what not to do.

However contrived, that was my ideal of what it must really feel like to be grown up.   Yes, I am idealistic.  I am, in fact, a person with a lot of ideals.  Sometimes and maybe even often, mistaken for being naive   And wouldn’t you know, most of my ideals were configured, thought up, created and baked to perfection as a young one.

I told you I was at the end.   And here is how I’m kind of, for the most part, certain that I am likely, and almost surely, at the end of my childhood . . . because, I’ve found myself at the end of many of my ideals.  The grown up truth is that things are not always as they seem and certainly not always as you want them to be.  The end.

Today, it’s “how do you do?” to the grown up me.  It may still be a little ways off.  But it is a speck that I can at least see.  And no, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say goodbye to the hopeful freckle-faced me.  But now, I can at least guide her and help her to be the woman she is supposed to be.  The beginning.

Oh, the places you'll go

If you’d asked me ten years ago, or even two years ago, where I’d be living at age twenty-five, I might have guessed New York or Boston. Perhaps I’d even shoot a glance toward the West Coast, but I certainly never would have guessed I’d find myself in Atlanta. Atlanta’s a lovely place, but it was never on my radar. Before I showed up, I hadn’t internalized any stereotypes about the food or the people or the culture here. In fact, I had no idea what the place even looked like. (So many trees! So many strip malls!) It’s been a really wonderful aspect of settling in here, I think—arriving without assumptions and just taking it all in.

The thing about just showing up is that you get to notice exactly how a place folds in around you. When I moved to Boston for college, I had so many ideas about who I’d be there and how I’d belong. But you can spend a long time wrestling with the difference between who you think you’re supposed to be in a place and who you really are.

I moved here in June without much of a plan for what I’d do or who I’d be in this new-to-me town, and I like it much better that way. Somehow, it feels simpler this time, getting to know myself and my new context without having to make comparisons to what I’d expected. It’s a little scary approaching life in a new place without a detailed map and itinerary, but it’s pretty exciting too.

As a writer, I love trying to think ahead, imagining how the arc of a story will pan out. I love answering questions like, “How do you imagine your life five years from now?” It’s comforting trying to predict the future.

But I’ve learned that life doesn’t really work that way, plotting out a set of points and connecting them with straight lines. Instead, my imaginary future is most helpful for understanding the present.

When I was in sixth grade, I was set on becoming an astronaut one day. I loved learning about the universe, and I really wanted to leave my small town behind for fabulous adventures. Years later, that same impulse landed me not on Mars but in Divinity school. There I didn’t study how the universe looks or how it works, but rather a bit about how each of us imagines the universe from where we’re standing.

From where I’m standing today, the universe looks very beautiful and strange, and the future looks wide open. I wonder a little about where I’ll be five years from now, but I’m learning to wonder more about how I’ll shape today.

When I focus more on where I am than on where I will be, life starts to feel less like a timeline and more like a spiral. Even as we move forward, we can look back and notice how we’ve circled back around to familiar places and ways of being.

Recently in the Jewish calendar, we’ve entered the month of Elul, a time for reflection and contemplation in preparation for the High Holidays. I’ve often spent this time reflecting on past mistakes and shortcomings and planning how to do better in the year to come. This time, I’ve set myself a new challenge: to delight in what the past is teaching me about today and to allow the future, real or imagined, to illuminate possibilities for the present.

Summer Soft

A collection of photos from the beach, celebrating the softness of summer's last days. [gallery link="file" exclude="4234"]