Uncertainty: Leaning In

There are always questions. There are no definite answers. Simple and peaceful, yet anxiety-provoking thoughts that Cheri Lucas shares in her blog post on collective memory and joy.

As I look forward at the next few months and the end of my formal education, I imagine joy-filled moments with friends, explorations of a city I have yet to truly give my heart to, and dedication to newly emerging passions and people. And, then, graduation, followed by the extending void of the rest of my life. Various years ago, as college ended, I knew I would live abroad at some point; when I lived abroad I knew I would go to graduate school. And, that is where the plan ended. My ten year old routine of setting goals for the new year, slipped between my fingers in January, as I couldn’t envision the next step. The feeling: true uncertainty.

Uncertainty is one of those mixed emotion words. It inspires youth, risk-taking, adventure-seeking, chance, and jumping in head-first. Its less satisfying other side, provokes anxiety and worry, stalling forward momentum. However, there is no escaping either side, as my thoughtful friends gently remind me, almost everything in life is uncertain. Someone, clearly more comfortable with uncertainty than myself, stated “uncertainty touches the best of what is human in us.” I feel it grabbing at what is most human about me, but perhaps not always the best part.

So, I posed the question to my community, asking how they handle uncertainty?

The response echoes both love and frustration with uncertainty. People both thrive on it and run and hide from it. One friend distilled the moment of power found in uncertainty, drawing from it a sense of self situated in the present. The past is past and the future is not-yet-known. C’s words powerfully bring comfort into the daily experience;

“Life is always like this---every single moment is filled with some sense of uncertainty because we don't know what will happen one second from now. . . but the more you can practice being in the present moment and letting go of both of these things, the more well equipped you are to handle times of "uncertainty" because you are actually accustomed to living your life riding the constant wave of uncertainty. Perhaps more important is to just accept this uncertainty because that is the nature of things. . . Really, the only thing we ever have is this exact moment. Our own minds get in the way of attaching absolute truth to either the past or future . . . to live in the present moment is to acknowledge that the only thing we have in uncertainty. . . the only choice we have is to experience each moment---both joyous and sad---as it unfolds.”

J shared a quote inspiring a sense of inner peace;

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” – Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

And, A, always practical;

“I tend to simply acknowledge that [the uncertainty], more often than not, I don't have answers and don't know what will happen, and attempt to just do what feels right at the moment.”

And, E, who strives for comfort with uncertainty:

“Uncertainty is the world of infinite possibility. Once you are certain, you are much more limited.”

Uncertainty inspires a certain leap-of-faith, of leaning into the unknown and taking a chance. Our faith in being happy, healing, and loved in the future depends on our comfort with taking this step. And, yet, as Cheri concludes in her post, “this shared uncertainty is comforting.” Perhaps, it is what ties us together as humans. Perhaps this why it comforts me to understand how my community loves and equally dislikes uncertainty.

In other places, lives, and selves abroad, constantly in transition, uncertainty colored every moment, experience, and relationship. Nights seemed endless, conversations deeply meaningful, and bonds stronger---in essence a sense of power in youthful flashes of self-discovery. Yet, the moments were at times root-less, and I felt the uncertainty needing a rest. I dreamed of graduate school as a place where I could hang uncertainty up in the closet for a few years and settle into community and a more predictable life. Yet, the fun-inspiring side of uncertainty slowly shifted as the future-focused anxiety seeped out of the closet.

Other friends wrote of the challenging side of uncertainty, the side that we are all aware of;

“. . . this is something I have been working on my whole life. There were and still are times when it makes me physically ill and totally unable to cope. . .I try to control the things I can. . .I always find it very comforting to organize my drawers.”

. . .

“I wrap myself into the fetal position until I find a new way of framing the situation so I can handle it.”

. . .

“I simply try to avoid it.” [end of email]

The emails from friends confirmed my suspicions that there is no right way to handle uncertainty, just the way that works for each individual. It can be scary, dark, and lonely.

Once you begin paying attention to uncertainty, it permeates everything, from over-heard conversations in coffee shops, to secrets friends share, and even to the conclusions of academic articles for class on how people handle uncertainty;

“People’s willingness to act depends on how knowledgeable they are/feel; however in most contexts individuals must act based on predictions.”

It seems obvious, of course that as humans we act based on predictions. What are the other options? The article seeks to explain types of actions people will take based on their knowledge of the outcome. In a world, where knowledge of the outcome is more of a desire than a reality, our decision-making is rooted in our prediction.

We are left with the leap-of-faith and creating positive predictions that allow us to take the risk---apply for the job, ask the girl out, plan that trip, make the move, and whatever uncertain plans you have. Leaning into uncertainty is a sense of freedom that makes us human and calls us to trust ourselves.

XXIII. Normandie

Madeleine is Clémence’s older sister, an outspoken 26-year-old who takes it upon herself to teach me all the dirty words I never learned in my American French classes. C’est très important, ton éducation! she tells me soon after my arrival. I agree wholeheartedly. It becomes a tradition for she, Clémence, Pauline and I to giggle around the table each night as they teach me things like how to tell people to fuck off in three different ways and a variety of tenses. I copy everything down into the little notebook I carry with me everywhere---Roger calls me l’écrivaine, the writer, as I am constantly scribbling away in it, trying to record every detail of Normandie. Apart from a journal, I use it for making lists of the new words I hear. By the end of the visit it is full of my looping sentences, spelling out phrases that, were I to leave my notebook sitting open on the kitchen table, would probably not be what Roger was expecting to find.

After a month under Madeleine’s tutelage, I am speaking grammatically incorrect, slang-ridden French. It makes for easier conversation with Clémence’s friends, but the transition back to Advanced Placement French in Ohio is something of a culture shock. When I incorporate my new vocabulary into an essay on what I did over the summer, the teacher takes away a point for each use of slangy verlan or argot, even though that’s the kind of French that most people in France actually speak.

It’s the worst grade I’ve gotten on a French assignment since I started studying the language years before, but I don’t mind. Each red X reminds me of the stamps in my passport from Charles de Gaulle airport, hard proof that I went somewhere and changed because of it.

On learning new things

Of all the courses I took in college and graduate school, beginning language courses were my favorites. They were often scheduled first thing in the morning, and with a terrifying list of intimidating lectures and seminars stretching before me throughout the week, I loved starting each day with a heaping dose of humility. When you are struggling through your alphabet at 9am, all bets are off. The first days and weeks of a beginning language course are disorienting, frustrating, overwhelming. It is impossible not to make a mistake. In fact, you have to make mistakes in order to learn to converse. And it is impossible not to embarrass yourself. For the longest time, you sound completely ridiculous as you try to pronounce unfamiliar sounds and string them together, inching toward coherency. You write at a kindergarten level.

But the learning curve is steep, and there are moments of sheer delight as you discover new ways of seeing and describing your world. The results are measurable. You started out knowing three words, and eventually you know ten, then a hundred. Soon enough, you’re making up your own sentences with those words. And one day, perhaps months or years into your study, you realize that you’re finally saying what really you want to say, rather than only what you know how to say.

Last week, my friend Diana gave a Berkman Center talk on Coding as a Liberal Art. She’s been chronicling her experience learning how to code, and in her talk, she offers up reflections on being a beginner and ideas for how coding could be taught in a liberal arts setting.

In a world overflowing with experts and specialists and wannabe experts and specialists, what I love most about Diana’s effort is her open and honest embrace of beginner status. There are so many emotional barriers to learning new things—vulnerability, embarrassment, fear of failing, fear of making mistakes, fear of the unknown—it’s a wonder any of us ever takes on the challenge, especially in adulthood, of being a novice.

Some believe it’s futile to try to learn a new language in adulthood, since it’s nearly impossible to achieve fluency. And I’ll be the first to admit that after years of language study, my conversational ability is generally pathetic. I’ll also be the first to advocate for learning new things, including impossible things, like languages.

Achieving perfection, or expertise, or fluency may be next to impossible, but perfection need not be the goal of a beginner. In fact, if perfection is the goal of a beginner, it’ll probably just get in her way.

One of the most important things I learned from being a beginner is how much I don’t know. A few words offered up in someone else’s native language or professional language doesn’t mean you totally understand a culture or field or perspective that’s different from your own. But it does mean you’re trying. It’s a step in the right direction. It means that perhaps you know enough to realize how much you don’t know.

Hungry Hungry Humans

Dear Sibyl, Is it me, or does everyone and their uncle have a food allergy/aversion/snobbish avoidance these days? I've found it increasingly difficult to share meals and prepare food for others without objections from gluten-free, only-eat-local-everything, on-a-cleanse, vegan, paleo-diet friends and family members.  I used to crave the communal intimacy of a shared meal, but now it seems "what I'm not eating" dominates the conversation (and makes my allergy-free, trying-to-stay-sane self question if I really should be eating that dairy/gluten/egg-rich muffin). Am I being insensitive?

Signed,

Eating the Damn Muffin Already

Dear Eating The Damn Muffin Already,

I wish you were my dinner guest.

Recently, we had a couple we were getting to know over for dinner.  I had baked a delicious dessert, since they were bringing the food.  The meal was saucy take out, rich in butter and spices.  When I brought out the salted caramel cake I had made from scratch, I was shocked that neither one of my guests were willing to try it.  They demurred, saying that "Sugar is poison, you know", and that they are cutting it out of their diet completely.

Stunned, I set my cake back on the stove, and, due to the calls of my toddler, who had been promised a special treat in honor of our guests and had even helped to bake it, I cut the members of my family slices and passed them out, leaving our guests to watch us consume a whole bunch of homemade poison.

Their choice to eat greasy take out and then refuse cake baffled me, but everyone deserves to do whatever they want with their body.  Really what bugged me were their terrible manners.

We live in a time of shifting ethics about food.  There used to be a cuisine that was considered "American", that everyone was expected to eat.  In an age of growing education about where our food comes from, who benefits from our consumption of it, and how to best feed our bodies, people are making more informed decisions about food than ever.

This is a really positive thing.  I would like nothing better than to use only local ingredients, from companies that respect the land and pay their workers a living wage.  I want to serve my family healthy food that will help our bodies grow strong.  However, I am not willing to give up the common decencies of community to do so.  My motto is "People are more important than things."  And that includes my current food philosophy.

So, what to do, if you have been invited over for dinner, and you know your hosts do not eat the same way as you?  First of all, ask what's on the menu, and what you can bring.  If you are a strict vegetarian, tell them so ahead of time.  If you have no food allergies, but would like to eat a certain way, offer to bring a salad or special gluten-free bread, and make that the focal point of your meal, eating sparingly what your hosts have provided for you.

Sharing food is such an important part of community building.  Another vital aspect of community is truth telling.  So, if you're on a diet, say you're on a damn diet.  Don't couch it in New Age terms, and definitely don't judge other people's food choices, especially not in their home.

So, to answer your question, are you being insensitive by not loving all the new diets people are trying?  Well, unless you are placing a pig on a spit in front of your vegan friend or inviting your gluten-free buddy over for Bread Fest 2013, nope.

If you find yourself irked by Macrobiotic Mary on your friend list, why not do something with her that is not centered around food?  I'm sure you can agree on an indulgent movie to watch together, to make up for the decadence missing in her diet.  Just make sure you order exactly what you want at the concession stand, and stand by your choice.  But get the small popcorn---she’s not going to share.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Lessons from Utah...

Dearest Clara,

Mountains always look better when covered in snow, don’t you think? There is something about those white capped natural structures that takes my breath regardless of whether I’m seeing them from the ground up, or from the sky down.  When I was in Utah just a few weeks ago, I was elated to finally see mountains all around. Last year I made a trip at about the same time and didn’t see a single one—in fact, I could barely see two feet in front of me because of all the fog and snowstorms.  This year, during my week in Utah, I also learned to:

• Drink water, water and more water: The climate in the mountains, especially in the wintertime, is dry as can be.  If you notice you’re thirsty, it’s too late.  Start drinking water in advance of your trip and keep drinking more than you think.  Your body and skin will need it more than you realize.
• Bring a bucket of lotion: Well…not a bucket but you’ll need a lot.  Again, because of the dry climate and the changes in weather, you’re skin will need a little more love and care than it usually might.  Add some strength and add some quantity to what you normally use —and don’t forget those hands! Lots of lotion if they’re out in the cold—remember, your hands will show everything first.
• Consume food as you consume alcohol : Seems like it would be natural right? Because of regulations in the state of Utah, you need to order food at the same time that you order alcohol.  All in all, that’s not a bad general principle to live by—a little something in the stomach when you grow old enough to have a drink is a generally a good idea.  When I think of all the times I enjoyed a glass or two (or perhaps even just a little bit more) and the morning wasn’t as bright, it was always because I had forgotten to eat or didn’t eat very much.  Ordering both at the same time could be a good rule of thumb as you navigate your way through your young adult years.
• “Look out for the praiseworthy, virtuous..or lovely”: I confess I’m not very familiar with the Mormon religion, which is quite present in Utah.  But one of the principles that I’ve learned about through my travels and conversations, is that there is a specific element of faith that addresses praise for the good or the deserving.  Perhaps it is simply a longer way of saying that credit should be given where credit is due, but I can’t help but think that it is a wonderfully generous and selfless principle to be on the lookout for things that deserve praise and then to actually give it.  So many of us go through this world feeling like our actions or efforts of gifts are unnoticed—and so many of us mean to give credit but don’t.  Be the person that looks for genuine opportunities to offer a bit of notice for that which merits it.

All my love,

Mom

An education

Sometimes it is really hard to be a Liberal. Lately, some of my doggedly-held values around social justice and being part of a diverse community have been challenged.  I am learning that when you become responsible for sending a small person out into the world, it can lend a highly specific perspective to what were previously only abstract concepts.  I am not particularly comfortable with some of what I am discovering about myself but I think it is important to ponder. So my husband and I have just hopped on the loopy carnival ride that is securing an education for a child in New York City.  While clearly this process is mystifying in many urban centers, NYC has a famously complex network of public neighborhood schools that are either failing miserably or so successful, such bright spots in a dreary oblivion, that people buy and sell apartments, use the address of a deceased relative, beg, borrow, steal, WHATEVER IT TAKES to gain entry.  And even then, they are not guaranteed a slot in the local school because of overcrowding or their kid may end up in a kindergarten class “annex” in a bodega around the corner.

I would like to state for the record, that our child just turned 1 and so in this moment our focus is on preschool, which doesn’t happen for another full year and yet somehow requires our urgent attention.  I feel whiplash, like I just recovered from having an infant and I haven’t had time to put my purse down before we are off to research schools.  There is pressure where we live to tour preschools, apply and get on the waiting lists NOW, even though because of a late December birthday, our daughter won’t even be eligible for preschool until 2014.  As an aside, our day care of preference (if we had chosen the day care route or would want that to bridge our daughter until preschool) has a 1-1.5 year long waiting list and the people we know whose kids go there now had the good sense to apply when they were newly pregnant.  And they still waited.  And oh by the way, you tour, interview and apply to these places that you then have the privilege of paying for. . . the amount of money varies from modest rent to modest salary. 

Now that we are in this process, we are naturally having to look at our daughter’s future options for school where we live.  Our values dictate that our child will go to public school.  I was educated in an excellent public school system in California and I grew up with this idea that you build community and strengthen local schools by participating in them.  Even if we had the money, private school was not a value of ours.  My husband went to private school because there was no appropriate public option where he lived and he came out of that experience enriched, but feeling like he wanted something different, something more inclusive, for his children.

Diversity is a buzzword, but it also means something to us.  We live in New York and in Brooklyn, specifically, because we want to live among a wide range of cultures, races, ethnicities, walks of life and we want this for our daughter, as well.  But the fact is that we live in a “burgeoning” neighborhood in Brooklyn that has mostly deficient, even sometimes dangerous public schools.

The de facto segregation that the school struggle creates here is widely known and continues unabated and we are likely on our way to contributing to it.  What happens in our community is that the poor children (almost exclusively of color) go to these lacking public schools in the neighborhood and get an inadequate start right out of the gate.  There are also charter schools with limited spaces (also a much-talked-about phenomenon) and these schools are not a panacea.  Charter schools are controversial in a number of ways (Do they really educate kids better?  Are they creating their own form of urban flight?  Are they bad for the neighborhood schools that the children “abandon?”).

We live in a building that is like an island in our neighborhood.  It is full of upper-middle class folks who moved in when this warehouse building was converted to loft condos 7 years ago.  This is the story of so many historic ghettos in Brooklyn.  The affluent people get pushed out of Manhattan and/or choose a different lifestyle and begin changing the face of the neighborhood.  We see the seeds of inequality every day, right outside our door.  Across the street from our island, we have a poorly-rated and, at times, unsafe public school.  In our entire district, there are maybe 1-2 schools that we would consider, none of which are near us and all of which would all require an exceptional process if we were to apply.

What most people on our island do is game the system in some way: they apply to schools using a different address; they happen to know someone somewhere; they apply to a million places outside the district and are willing to wait until August to get a “yes” if the school has space; they have their child tested for “gifted and talented” status and ship them off to a school with a program, etc.  All of this is not only exhausting it has the effect of landing like-people in like-places.  Here we are, priding ourselves on living our diverse experience and we will almost certainly usher our kid toward a school or a classroom where she will be surrounded by kids that are almost exactly like her in most ways.  We will recreate the island and we don’t feel we have any choice about it.

I have begun to call into question what I mean when I say I value diversity.  It is easy to say this academically, and it is quite another to live in a neighborhood where there are shots fired 25 feet behind you when you are 8 months pregnant.  It is easy to say that you want your child to be exposed to every kind of experience until you watch the kids from the local school hang out just steps from the entrance, in broad daylight, smoking weed and let’s just say “talking disrespectfully” about women.  It is easy to say that you love the many threads of our beautiful fabric until you feel so intimidated by the guys on the corner that you walk the long way, and then cross in front of the police station, to get to the subway.  Of course, these experiences are not reflective of the entire character of the neighborhood, but they are an undeniable fact of the culture here.  I want to believe that people of every background can be truly integrated, but sometimes I feel like we all just end up living parallel lives within the same space.

We sat in a classroom with 60+ other parents on Monday to begin the tour of our desired preschool FOR 2014.  I looked around the room and saw lots of hues, heard a few different languages, noticed some non-traditional parents and felt a little better about myself.  Of course if you pay attention for long in a situation like that, you start to realize that everyone is talking to their children in the same way, using the same phrases, asking the same questions, carrying similar gear, coming to and from similar jobs.  It seems like this level of diversity will have to do for now until I can come up with a way to feel more “of” our neighborhood.  And so (if we get in!), we will travel back and forth from one island to another with our daughter and hope that the trip along the way becomes smoother sailing.

Women Who Will Never Die

Yes, literature has a gift: making people and feelings immortal. Over the years, I have stumbled upon many women characters portrayed by writers who were obsessed by their beauty and being. I’ve always felt like I wanted to know everything about these women. What was so special about them? What inspired poets and writers to grab their pens and start writing? Were they worth so much attention? I admire the power of these women, those very peculiar qualities that made them live through the ages in fiction and poetry. Many of them fascinate me, and make me feel a bit envious, too. I think I actually have a number of favorites, and in this list I will only mention three of them (casual order):

 

1. Alice in wonderland. Who was the real Alice in Wonderland immortalized by Lewis Carroll, aka Charles Dodgson? I have always felt some kind of attachment to Alice’s story. When I was little, my mother used to feed me with tales. My favorites were the ones that became Walt Disney’s classics, Alice in Wonderland above all. I watched the cartoon so many times I actually still know the words by heart. Alice Liddell Hargreaves was an unrestrained child, naive and innocent at times, but also incredibly aware of the world around her. Alice’s father was the Dean of Westminster School and was soon appointed to the deanery of Christ Church, Oxford. Dodgson/Carroll met the Liddell family in 1855. The relationship between the girl and Dodgson has been the source of much controversy. Dodgson entertained Alice and her sisters by telling them stories, and used them as subjects for his hobby, photography. There is no record of why the relationship between him and the Liddells broke so suddenly, but what remains are some very beautiful pictures of the little Alice (and a WONDERful book!).

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

2. How not to wonder about Beatrice’s life? We have no pictures, of course! (Yes, paintings!) What we have is Dante’s description of her, which appears in La Vita Nova. When he first saw her, she was dressed in soft crimson and wore a girdle around her waist. Dante fell in love with Beatrice at first sight, and he describes her with divine and angelic qualities. One afternoon, while Beatrice was walking the streets of Florence, she turned and greeted him. On the very same day, Dante had a dream about Beatrice, who became the subject of his first sonnet of La Vita Nova.

To every captive soul and gentle heart

into whose sight this present speech may come,

so that they might write its meaning for me,

greetings, in their lord’s name, who is Love.

Already a third of the hours were almost past

of the time when all the stars were shining,

when Amor suddenly appeared to me

whose memory fills me with terror.

Joyfully Amor seemed to me to hold

my heart in his hand, and held in his arms

my lady wrapped in a cloth sleeping.

Then he woke her, and that burning heart

he fed to her reverently, she fearing,

afterwards he went not to be seen weeping.

                            from La Vita Nova - A ciascun´alma presa e gentil core

3. Traveling back in time, there’s another woman who got my full attention. Her name is Lesbia, and Catullus was the poet who fell deeply in love with her (her real name was probably Clodia Metelli). I still remember how much passion my Latin professor put during that class in high school, commenting each and every word from this beautiful poem below. I seriously think this and other ancient poems were what motivated me to classical studies.

To every captive soul and gentle heart

into whose sight this present speech may come,

so that they might write its meaning for me,

greetings, in their lord’s name, who is Love.

Already a third of the hours were almost past

of the time when all the stars were shining,

when Amor suddenly appeared to me

whose memory fills me with terror.

Joyfully Amor seemed to me to hold

my heart in his hand, and held in his arms

my lady wrapped in a cloth sleeping.

Then he woke her, and that burning heart

he fed to her reverently, she fearing,

afterwards he went not to be seen weeping.

                                         from How Many Kisses

Who are your favorite women in literature?

new life

These are my plants. Or most of them anyway. I crammed them onto a shelf one morning a few weeks ago in an effort to give them all a little extra dose of sunlight. My geranium, which has been steadily hanging on since April, was beginning to look a little droopy and I was worried she might have caught a cold in our ice box of a bathroom. Twenty minutes or so on the radiator would do a world of good, I figured, and so I took her down from her perch above the bathroom mirror and snuggled her against the paperwhite bottles.

These plants are the only living things in this world that depend on me for their daily well-being. Our apartment's too tiny for even the smallest goldfish and I'm fairly certain that my husband's diet would actually improve if tomorrow I suddenly vanished. But these plants, they need me. The paperwhites, I'll admit, only barely. They aren't cut out for long-term relationships. They grow up fast and bloom with fanfare, but they're gone before they've hardly begun. Last week there was a casualty when one collided with the aformentioned radiator. I came down our ladder-stairs in the morning to find the singed remains of a particularly beautiful specimen. Perhaps an extra adjustment the night before would have been more prudent, but I had gone to bed without checking in and in the night the poor bulb was jettisoned from its bottle. I picked at the pieces of leaf that had burned onto the radiator, and completed a quick burial, sans ceremony.

Two weeks ago my big sister became the mother of an actual human being. There were warning signs, of course: the months of pregnancy, the addition of a wooden cradle to her apartment, the ever-expanding belly. But all of that was hardly preparation for the sudden arrival of a pink and squirmy and incredibly alive little person. Poof, a human being with a tiny beating heart and two tiny expanding lungs and all of those many fingers and toes out in the wide world alongside us. I won't pretend to understand what it must be like to be a mother, but I can say that this wilty geranium, feisty paperwhite-owning aunt is awestruck, already.

The Other War On Women

Birth control. Binders. Bodies. Babies. As last fall’s presidential election came to a head, the phrase “war on women” became commonplace, part of the traditional vitriolic mud-slinging that both sides used against the other. As a woman, and one who places a high value on the freedoms of women, I of course followed the back-and-forth debates with interest, nausea, or amsuement, depending on what I was hearing.

But during that same period, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about a different “war on women”—the war of woman against woman, the war that we wage on each other, no men required.

At the beginning of my pregnancy last summer, I was talking to a pair of newlywed friends about my quest for the best pregnancy books.

“I don’t want to read anything that is going to make me panic about what could be wrong with my baby, or feel guilty about the pregnancy and parenting choices I make,” I told them.

The husband wrinkled his brow in confusion. “What do you mean, feel guilty?” he asked. “Why would parenting books make you feel guilty?”

I had to laugh at his response. It hadn’t taken me long after seeing that positive pregnancy test to come to understand just how incredibly saturated with guilt the world of pregnancy and parenting really is. Pregnancy books, websites, and forums are filled with dramatic stories about the harm you could potentially do to your unborn baby through seemingly innocuous things including (but not limited to!) nutrition, exercise (or lack thereof), medication, and even hot baths. Champions of epidurals or unmedicated childbirth regularly spar over the various merits of their preferred method, often making it seem like your child’s entire future life could hinge on whether or not you had a medicated labor and delivery.

And things only get more heated when you get into the world of parenting, with all its various methodologies and ideologies and conflicting advice. Breast or bottle? Crib or co-sleeping? Baby swing or babywearing?

Parenting isn’t the only arena in which women seem to spend an awful lot of time attacking each other, of course—it’s just the one I’ve been immersed in the most as I’ve prepared to welcome this new little one into the world. I’ve also seen women go to bat over things as big as career choices and hiring help, and things as insignificant as dyeing their hair or wearing makeup.

And let’s not even get started on the pressure we put on each other when it comes to what a woman should look like.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m as guilty as anyone else. I have on far too many occasions found myself judging another woman’s lifestyle choices, or fashion, or hair, or parenting, or career path. I’ve cringed on seeing wardrobe choices I don’t agree with and raised my eyebrows at life paths that seem less-than-ideal according to my worldview.

But still, I can’t help thinking:

What would the world be like if we women didn’t spend quite so much time and energy waging war on each other?

My resolution for this year is to give myself more grace—to stop holding myself to impossible standards, to have a little compassion for the times when I inevitably fall short (and then do so again, and again, and again). I’m vowing in 2013 to be a little kinder and gentler on myself, accept my own weaknesses and allow myself a little more love.

And all of this, this thinking about new year’s resolutions and about the war among women, has me thinking also: What if we all could do this, just a little, for each other? What if we could allow each other just a little more grace, a little more love, a little more acceptance? What if we could let go of our own lifestyles and convictions just long enough to recognize that, regardless of whether we feed our children by breast or bottle, we are all worthy of love?

It might just be a powerful change, indeed.

Do you ever find yourself at war with other women?

Like Water

By Judith NewtonHer book, Tasting Home, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

“How do you peel a walnut?” my daughter asked as she looked, not too happily, at the mound of nuts on the kitchen table.  We’d spent three days in the kitchen laboring over the twelve dishes we’d planned for a large buffet, and chiles en nogada, or chiles in walnut sauce, were the final stage of our cooking marathon.  That very evening some forty faculty and students from all over campus would be arriving to celebrate our new multicultural graduate program, and if any dish could instill a sense of community it would be chiles en nogada.

Making simple recipes like tacos de crema, macaroni with serrano chiles, and refried beans had been easy and even pleasurable, but the chiles in walnut sauce were posing a challenge. I’d combined Frida Kahlo’s recipe with one I’d taken from the Internet, and the latter called on us to peel the walnuts before pulverizing them for the sauce. “Mom,” said Hannah, rubbing at one of the walnuts, “this brown stuff isn’t coming off.” “This is a window into the lives of generations of women,” I said, ineffectually scrubbing another walnut with my fingers. “Can you imagine how much time they spent working in kitchens?” “I love cooking with you like this,” Hannah had said when we first began. “I love it too,” I’d said. Our years of cooking together and of struggling through difficult recipes had created a strong sense of solidarity.

We decided not to peel the walnuts, since Frida’s recipe didn’t call for it, but we did roast the two dozen poblano chiles and then pulled off their skins. Then we chopped a picadillo out of shredded meat, fruits, nuts and cinnamon, and, cradling the chiles in our hands, began to stuff them with the sweet and savory mix. We were treating those chiles as if they’d just been born, but, despite our labor, they were developing some ugly splits. We decided not to flour them, coat them in egg mix, and then fry them in hot oil as Frida’s recipe required.

“It’s too risky,” I said, entertaining grim visions of the chiles bursting their sides and spilling their colorful innards into a smoky pool of oil. Did Frida fry her own chiles, I wondered. Then came the sauce---easy, sweet, and cool. Four cups of (unpeeled) walnuts pureed with cream cheese, Mexican crema, cinnamon, and a fragrant half cup of sherry. Finally, seeds from six pomegranates and sprigs of parsley to go on top.  Red, white, and green---the colors of the Mexican flag.

I had been thinking about a Mexican novel for the entire three days, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. I’d been imagining Hannah and me as Tita and Chenca, two characters who spend much of their lives in the kitchen. A takeoff on nineteenth-century Mexican romance, Like Water is a novel about love and also a novel about politics, the latter being represented by the Mexican Revolution and the ongoing struggle of Tita and her sister Gertrude against patriarchal culture.

Each chapter of the novel is organized around a recipe, and the process involved in making the chapter’s dish---the grinding, the toasting, the chopping, the boiling, the frying, the cracking of eggs–is so thoroughly woven throughout the pages that cooking, an often invisible form of labor, becomes as central to the story as romance and revolution. Cooking, indeed, becomes an emblem of the domestic work that makes romance and revolution possible. It is the force that keeps women and men alive not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, and politically as well.

Cooking is like that, always there, and if it is as it should be, it not only nourishes our bodies but gives us the comfort of feeling loved, cared for, and secure. Eating what is cooked and served in a caring way evokes one of our first experiences of feeling at home in the world, the experience of being fed by another being. That is one reason that cooking and eating with others can heal the adult self, one reason that it can so easily make us feel connected to another person, a family, a culture, a political community.

Like Tita and Chenca, Hannah and I were laboring in the service of politics and love. The new graduate program was meant to be revolutionary---cross racial, multi-cultural, and oriented toward political activism not just inside, but outside the classroom as well. And I had done enough organizing by then to know how cooking for others, not just from duty, but with generosity and lightness of heart, can develop and sustain those ties of feeling that are, at bottom, what make political community possible.

In Like Water for Chocolate, food is given magical force.  Quail in Rose Petal Sauce invites Tita and Pedro to enter each other’s bodies both spiritually and sensuously as they sit at the dining table. It prompts Gertrude to run away with a revolutionary, sitting behind him, naked on his horse. The Chiles in Walnut Sauce provoke the guests at Tita and Pedro’s wedding to make passionate love. Magical realism like this suggests the power of emotion, of the unconscious, and of cooking as emotion work in the day-to-day activities of our lives.

Like life, the novel is full of mothers, those who nourish and those who do not. The bad mother, Elena, controls Tita, insists that Tita serve her until she dies, and forbids Tita to marry Pedro, the man she loves. Cruel, repressing, she is the mother who denies. Even after death, she reappears, forbidding Tita to be happy. Like a force of nature, she returns again and again, suggesting the lasting influence of how we are mothered.

But Tita finds good mothers to take Elena’s place---Chenca, the cook who tends to Tita in the kitchen, and Dr. John and his Indian mother, Morning Light, who feed Tita healing foods after Elena brutally entombs her daughter in the Dove Cot. Tita herself becomes a nurturing mother to Esperanza, her sister’s daughter. Like Tita I, too, had found alternative mothers---in Dick, my gay ex-husband, in my women friends, in colleagues I had come to love. But most of all I had found mothering in being motherly---to Hannah and to my political community. Cooking for, and eating with, others had all but eclipsed those days in my mother’s house---the shame, the lost identity, the spilled water on the floor. Like Chenca, I wanted to pass on, to Hannah and to others, the recipes, the utopian practices, the ways of being and of labor that make history more than a tale of struggle; that make it also a love story, a story of caring for others.

* * *

CHILES EN NOGADA (Adapted with permission of Marilyn Tausend from adaptation by StarChefs.com from Cocina de la Familia: More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens by Marilyn Tausend with Miguel Ravago. Fireside, Simon & Schuster, Inc: New York, 1999.)

Marilyn Tausend kindly informs me that the secret to peeling the walnuts is to use fresh walnuts, right from the tree if possible. Meat: 2 lb beef brisket or 1 lb beef and 1 lb pork 1 small white onion cut into quarters 2 cloves garlic 1 T sea salt Picadillo: 4 T. safflower or canola oil 1/3 c. chopped white onion ½ tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper 1/8 tsp ground cloves 3 heaping T. raisins 2 T chopped walnuts 2 T. candied pineapple 1 fresh pear, peeled and chopped 1 apple, peeled and chopped 3 large, ripe tomatoes, roasted, peeled and chopped Kosher salt to taste Chiles: 6 fresh poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, and seeded with stem intact Walnut Sauce: 1 c. fresh walnuts 6 oz cream cheese (not fat free) at room temperature 1 ½ c Mexican Crema ½ tsp sea salt 1 T sugar 1/8 tsp cinnamon ¼ c. dry sherry Garnish: 1 T. chopped flat-leaf parsley ½ c. pomegranate seeds 1.      Cut meat into large chunks; remove excess fat. Place meat in large Dutch oven with onion, garlic and salt. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.  Skim off foam if it collects on the surface. Lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes until the meat is just tender. 2.      Remove from heat and allow meat to cool in the broth. Then remove meat and finely shred it. 3.       Warm the oil in a heavy skillet and sauté the onion and garlic over medium heat until pale gold.  Stir in shredded meat and cook for 5 minutes. Add cinnamon, pepper, cloves.  Stir in raisins, 2 T walnuts, and candied pineapple.  Add chopped pear and apple and mix well. Add tomatoes and salt to taste.  Continue cooking over medium high heat until most of the moisture has evaporated.  Stir now and then.  Let cool, cover, and set aside.  The picadillo may be made one day ahead. 4.      Slit the chilies down the side just long enough to remove seeds and veins, keeping the stem end intact. Drain chilies on absorbent paper until completely dry. Set aside. Chiles may be made a day in advance 5.      At least 3 hours in advance, place 1 c walnuts in small pan of boiling water.  Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Drain the nuts and, when cool, rub off as much of the dark skin as possible.  Chop into small pieces. 6.      Place nuts, cream cheese, crema, and salt in a blender and puree thoroughly.  Stir in the sugar, cinnamon and sherry.  Chill for several hours. 7.      Preheat oven to 350 F.  When ready to serve reheat the meat filling and stuff the chilies. Place chilies, covered in warm oven.  After they are heated, place chilies on serving platter, cover with chilled walnut sauce and sprinkle with parsley and pomegranate seeds.

Republished with permission from Tasting Home

All we need to know about dinner and divinity

Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal is one of those favorite books of mine that I haven’t finished yet. I’d like to make it to the end one day, but I’m certainly not in a hurry. I’m savoring it bit by bit, with full confidence that the author herself would approve of my slow read. It’s a book I know I’ll keep returning to even after I’ve finished it, much like the simple, beautiful thought at the heart of the book itself---that the end of every meal is the beginning of another. It’s a book that deserves, in my opinion, a genre of its own. I’ve never read anything like it. It’s not a cookbook or an instruction manual or a food memoir. I’d say it’s a sort of philosophy of food.

A browse through the table of contents is enough to make you cry: “How to Catch Your Tail,” “How to Paint Without Brushes,” “How to Light a Room,” “How to Make Peace,” “How to Build a Ship,” “How to Be Tender,” “How to Weather a Storm,” “How to End.”

You’d think it’s a book about food, and it is, but it is also a book about everything. Adler will start you off with an egg, then catapult you into the heavens, and finally bring you back down decidedly onto the earth. For example: “A gently but sincerely cooked egg tells us all we need to know about divinity. It hinges not on the question of how the egg began, but how the egg will end. A good egg, cooked deliberately, gives us a glimpse of the greater forces at play.”

I have a tendency to favor beginnings over middles and endings, but the opposite is true when it comes to food. I love the eating and drinking and savoring and lingering. I love a kitchen in action, with peels and cores strewn about the counters and several pots simmering on the stove. In the case of food, it is the beginning that catches me off guard. Why is it that dinner so often feels like a challenge to reinvent the wheel?

Some very wise friends sent us off with this book as an engagement gift, as we set out to establish a life---and a kitchen---together. From the very first pages, it has cut right through any anxieties I may have had about how we would feed ourselves. It’s the idea that eating well has nothing to do with extravagance, that cooking well has nothing to do with fancy tools, and that dinner has everything to do with where you left off in the last meal, or in all the meals that have come before.

I’ve never been much of a planner when it comes to meals, and as far as I can tell, thank goodness, An Everlasting Meal lets me off the hook. In practice, this means that the first inkling of dinner begins with the simple practice of getting a pot of water on the stove to boil and an onion in a skillet to soften. Then, and only then, is it time to start rummaging around considering what’s for dinner.

What comforts me most about this approach is that it begins with doing, rather than thinking. It’s one of those rituals buried in the everyday that, once you’ve realized it’s there, offers both a steady anchor and a comfortable stretch of rope for creative drifting.

Are You My Mother?

Dear Sibyl, Recently my grandmother got ill, and my mom went across the country to care for her.  I know this is the right thing for my mom to do, but I'm feeling abandoned and upset.  My mom recently retired and was so excited about all the ways she could spend time with her grandkids (my children) and help us out.  I know this sounds incredibly selfish, but my mom also has 5 siblings that live near my grandmother, and I'm just dumbfounded that she dropped us.  Any words of wisdom?

Distraught Daughter

Dear DD,

We never know when our mothers will leave us.  For some it is early, from a death or an emotional detachment.  For others, it is much later, unfortunately often at the time we feel we need them most.  Either way, it is always painful, and always a reason to mourn and find a way to move on.

So many of the problems in relationships, particularly with family, stem from expectations.  You expected that your mom would be there for you, to help you raise her grandchildren.  This was not an unreasonable expectation, since she has been helping you thus far, but now that you are having to shift your way of thinking about her role, it's leaving you feeling abandoned.

Your mother has her own life.  She's an adult, and she can do anything she wants with her retirement---she's earned it.  So, I'm wondering, how did she tell you that she was leaving town, and letting go of her commitments to you?  If she left without notice, and without you getting a chance to tell her how much you'll miss her, and how sad it is that your kids will lose their close relationship with her, then what you need to do is tell her how you're feeling, and that she could have handled the communication of the change differently.

The other piece that stands out to me from your letter is that you feel that her siblings could be stepping up to the plate and helping your grandmother so your mother could stay with you.  Well, that's an awkward situation to be in.  I'm not sure you want to take on your entire family system, and get involved in their complicated maneuvering of this caregiving issue.  So, you'll have to adjust your expectations for them as well as your mom.

Here's the tricky part.  You need to change what role you are giving your mother in your life (and your kids' lives), without losing the emotional connection to her.  This means you can't just totally detach and say, "Well, I guess she doesn't care about me or her grandchildren!"  You prevent this by being honest about your feelings (stop judging them as selfish and let yourself have them), with yourself and with her, and by accepting what offers she can give at this time.  That way, you're keeping the door open for a closer connection with your mom when she has the space and energy for it again.

You might find this change in roles means you are able to support your mom a bit, too.  I bet it is hard taking care of your grandmother, and perhaps you will get closer to her in this time by offering your ear to her, to listen to her struggles.  In order to do that, you'll have to forgive her for bailing on you.  It won't be easy, but if what you ultimately desire is more closeness with your mother, you'll find it a beautifully strange process.

Love, Sibyl

Lessons from a creative summit...

  Dearest Clara,

Every once in awhile, I like to get outside of my own box. It seems strange that as a management consultant that I would bother to spend time with photographers or writers or other creatives.  But while I enjoy what I do for a living, my true passions are outside of that.  I indulge them by spending time with others who can and do choose them for a living.  I admire that group of people so much---and sometimes there's nothing like getting out of your usual cadence to really gain perspective.  This weekend I attended a conference with hundreds of other people much more creative than I.  Sometimes I certainly wish that passions could be more for me, but at least for the immediate future, events like these will be as close as I can get.

Here are a few thoughts from some of the most creative people I have met, who also happen to be some of the best advisors for life as it turns out:

• "The only risk is not taking any risk": A reminder from one of the most risk-taking designers out in our time that if you don't have the courage to put your ideas and thoughts and frameworks out there to push the boundaries and make something happen, then ultimately the biggest thing at stake is that nothing at all will happen.  And life is about making things happen.  You get to choose the path that will be best for you, but have the courage to choose something.  Don't live your life by default.
• "You might as well spend time learning how to hustle since that is what you'll be doing from here until eternity":  I think some might look at this statement and find it demotivating.  After all, there's something about looking at a life of hustle that is akin to looking at a treadmill with no end of the road in sight.  But I see this differently.  Ultimately, life is about hard work, and that never really goes away.  If you learn to do the work---be thorough, pace yourself, know how to prioritize, know when to say no, know how to go after opportunities, know that no return comes without investment---then the work doesn't seem so daunting.  Learn how to do the work right.
• "You  might be judging me but that's not any of my business---you do what you like and I'll do the same": You'll find soon enough that the world is full of judgement---I'm always ashamed when I find myself on the giving end. I know from being on the receiving end, that often that judgement stings.  I found this young artist's perspective so touching when she openly acknowledged her awareness of people's judgement and her gracious, character building way of disregarding it---she regards judgement as the problem of the person giving it, not the person receiving it.  Have faith in who you are as a person---don't be defined by the judgement of others.
• "It's better to be disliked for who you are, than to be liked for someone people only think you are": It is so easy to get caught up in who we think we should be based on what others think we should be.  You'll know when you're doing it because you don't quite feel yourself, because you always have this nagging feeling of being left behind, and because you only feel that you're moving ahead when others give you permission to. . . look for those signs.  You won't want to admit them but trying to be someone else will eventually wear you out and wear you down---it's better to be known for who you really are, even if it comes at the cost of admitting who you are not.
• "I stopped comparing myself to others when I realized I was comparing my insides to other people's outsides": It's tempting to compare.  And if we're insecure, it can even be addictive.  But when we do, we know our full gifts and limitations but we don't necessarily see the full picture with others.  We don't know what's going on behind the scenes and we only see part of the picture (which incidentally is what we want to see).  It can only make you feel bad about yourself since a comparison is, in that sense, ultimately unfair.
• "Your success is built on incremental growth, and sometimes, every once in a while, magic might happen": I thought this was a tremendous insight and can be applied to nearly any project.  With information coming at us quicker and quicker, we might see the success of others and think it came to them overnight.  Every once  in a while that might be the case, but I assure you that it is extremely rare.  Most people have been working at their dreams and talents for years if not a lifetime, and for most people, success comes in small increments at a time.  Every so often, we're gifted a bit of magic - perhaps a collaboration, or flattering press, or some other injection that gives us some accelerated growth.  But that wouldn't happen without our foundational increments to support us.  When it seems like your due will never come, just keep working---the more solid your foundation, the longer your success will ultimately hold.

I know your successes will be many in this world, and I, for one, can't wait to see you achieve them.

All my love,

Mom

The Birthday Tradition

A few years ago, I invented something called The Birthday Tradition.  Despite my opinions on my birthday (namely, that it is the best holiday of the year; that I am allowed to be giddy for a week or so before and depressed for a week or so after; that “It’s my birthday!” is a respectable response to any question and/or comment directed at me in the time period listed above), I did not actually institute the Tradition on my birthday, but on my boyfriend, Zack’s.  I’d already moved to New York by then, and he was still living in San Francisco, finishing up a building project at his job before joining me.  I came back to San Francisco for the holidays and for his birthday.  Feeling mushy (booze, old friends and too many gingerbread men, aka crack, will do that to me), I began espousing my love for Zack. “He’s one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met,” I said, “but he also can talk about anything and everything, for hours, even if he’s just humoring me.  He looks super sexy when he’s rock climbing and has successfully taught me how to build IKEA furniture.  Kinda.”

“Well,” our friend Matt jumped in.  “If we’re doing that, I wanna say why I think Zack is awesome.”

“Me too,” said our friend Colette.  “You guys can’t get all the credit when he ends up crying.”

And the Birthday Tradition was born.

We do it every birthday, and every person is required to say their bit, even a friend’s new girlfriend or boyfriend who met the birthday person moments before.   There’s a lot to love about people, whether you’ve just met them or ate their crayons in kindergarten.  That’s the point of the Birthday Tradition:  we so often think the things we love about people, little or big, but rarely actually say them. Sometimes it’s nice, surrounded by loved ones, to be reminded of why the love is there.  It makes it that much more concrete, and that much harder to break.

We’ve done the Tradition for every birthday I’ve attended for the past three years.  I’ve said I loved a person’s brilliant sock collection, their offbeat sense of humor, their impeccable sense of self, their cooking and their party planning and their unfailing kindness and their loyalty and their karaoke skills.  Which is why I was so devastated when Zack told me, as his first birthday in London was rapidly approaching, that he thought we should skip the Tradition this year.

“But why?” I said, extending the final syllable, clutching my hands to my cheeks and sliding to the floor writhing as if a hot ball of fire were about to burst from my belly button.

“Most of the people coming out are friends from grad school,” he said.  “It’s kind of like asking your colleagues at work to say something.  I think it’ll be more awkward than fun.  Also, the British aren’t really mushy like that.”  (This is true: I’ve witnessed one marriage proposal in England.  It took place in a pub, and the matter of fact question was followed by fish and chips)

Begrudgingly, I accepted Zack’s wishes.  That night, though, as we readied ourselves to go out to the pub in which we would ring in his birthday, I was struck by regret.  Zack, of all people, needed the Birthday Tradition.  I brought in our roommate, and together the three of us, with our two cats as witnesses, did a mini Tradition.  It was the smallest the Tradition had ever been, but it was lovely.  Then we went to the pub and got drunk.

As the next day, Zack’s actual birthday, drew to a close, we ate cake at our flat, and watched as snowflakes the size of my nose slowly blanketed the world around our windows.

“It was a good birthday, right?” I said, snuggled up to Zack on the couch.

“It was,” he said.  We’d just talked to his parents in California, and his voice, like them, was far away.  A birthday is a time filled with love, but it’s often that kind of love that makes you miss the people you love the most.  I snuggled in closer, and squeezed him hard.

And then the email came.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZACK, said the subject line, and in the email a single line of message, the word “Love” followed by the names of all of the New York friends we’d left behind.  He clicked open the attached Powerpoint and found, on the first page, the words, “Happy birthday, Zack!  We are so bummed that we can’t celebrate with you this year so the Birthday Tradition has gone digital.  We miss and love you, The Gang.”  Next to it was a not so flattering picture of Zack asleep with a pizza box on his belly.

Every page was made by one of our friends, and every page featured a heart felt message and several embarrassing photos, many taken years ago, reminders of how long the friendships had endured.  Our friend who is currently in Thailand even submitted his response, and a lump formed in my throat as Zack clicked through page after page of messages of love.  Zack, whom I’ve seen cry less times than I can count on one three fingered hand, blinked back shiny tears.

It is not the birthday of the Birthday Tradition, but nonetheless, I would like to say why I love it.  I love it because the more positives in the world, the better.  I love it because it makes me feel grateful for my friends, and reminds me that they are the buoys that so often keep me afloat.  I love it because it’s easy, and simple, and kind.  I love it because I love to see people blushing, and I love it because it’s fun to watch the newbies squirm.  Mostly, though, I love it because it could show, even from an ocean away, that the love was still there, steadfast and strong.

The Vanishing Man

Dear Sibyl, This summer, one of my best friends from childhood contacted me.  Actually, he was the first person I ever Loved.  As a teen, I hid my feelings from him for five years.  Finally, I told him how I felt in a letter, and said that if he didn't feel the same we shouldn’t continue to be friends.  I didn't hear from him again until this summer---fifteen years later.

When I heard from him, I was both excited and wary.  It was great to have him back!  At the same time, he was newly divorced after being separated for a year and clearly looking for something.  He said that he had a crush on me all those many years ago too, and that he had thought about me many times.  He started to talk about wanting to come visit.  I live over 600 miles away.  His tone became more and more romantic, and it was around this time I decided to do a reality check.

I didn't say I wasn't interested.  On the contrary, I was very interested, but I said that if he was going to keep talking romance, I needed to see him.  I told him that I really want children and a family, and that if he wanted to get together I would need him to be open to exploring that possibility with me if things went well.  

He responded that he cared about me, but that his relationships usually happen more 'organically'.  I said I understood and was sincerely grateful for his honesty.  We both said we were still very much interested in maintaining the friendship.

I didn't hear from him after our conversation for four months.

On Christmas, he reached out.  Although my feelings were mixed, I was mostly happy to finally be hearing from him again.

He dated someone briefly in the intervening time but is once again alone.  A few months ago, he was checked out by a doctor and learned he is sterile.  He bought a house in order to move toward a place where he can have a wife and children.  He knew he was sterile when he bought it, but he hopes to have a family through non-traditional means.  He was not in a good place on Christmas, because he had just spent the whole day around family with lots of little children.  He was feeling lonely and sad.  I doubted when I hung up the phone that I would ever hear from him again.

Since then, he has apologized several times for being a bad friend to me, and the two of us have been communicating almost every day, texting or emailing.  It has felt good to have him back in my life.

My love life has been complicated recently, and I let him know that the first time we talked.  For the first time ever, I’ve had a Friend with Benefits.  My FwB is great, but I always knew he was moving away. In fact, FwB just left this morning.  

The longer my old crush and I talk the more I realize I have major unresolved feelings for him.  In fact, I have been unable to climax since our initial Christmas conversation.  The one time I successfully came, it was because I was concentrating really hard on pretending I was with Old Flame instead of with my lovely FwB.  This has never been a problem for me in the past.  

Mostly, boundaries with Old Flame have stayed platonic this time around, but last night, on the eve of my FwB's departure, I texted that I was considering spending the next six months in celibacy.  Old Flame texted back ('jokingly") that I should visit him so he could “knock the bottom out for me instead”.  We flirted with each other and with the idea of me visiting.

I know this situation is emotionally precarious.  I really do want a family and a partnership, but after years of searching, I’m also feeling exhausted.  I want to have fun.  I want to have sex, hence the FwB.  I want romance to just happen for me the way it seems to be happening for ALL of my friends without having to work to meet that someone special.  

Even more powerful than these needs for sex and fun is the feeling that this man still has lessons to teach me.  Maybe he's just going to teach me more about heartbreak, but there's only one way to know for certain.  I want to find out.

I want to visit.  I want have sex with him, but I don't know if the flirting is genuine.  If it's not, I definitely need to ask him to stop.  At the same time, I'm tired of being the boundary police, the one who has to bring up all the serious stuff.  I’m also dreading bringing it up since the last two times I brought it up he completely disappeared.  If it happens again, do I keep letting him back into my life?  Our relationship has meant so much to me over the years, I don’t want to cut him out.  How do I even start this conversation?  Again?

Sincerely, Deja Vu

Dear Deja Vu,

Sweet baby jesus, you have a LOT going on here, girl.

The first thing I need to point out here is that you have not seen this person in fifteen years.  Fifteen years.  I know he seems quite attractive and interesting over text, email, and the phone, but things can be very different in person: is he comfortable in his own skin?  Does he tip waitstaff well?  Is he a road rage driver?  Can he dance?  These are things you'll never know on g-chat, and could be deal breakers.

The thing is, I am getting the sense from your letter that nothing would be a deal breaker for you.  You want to correct this past hurt that you’ve held onto for all these years, and you’ll jump at any chance to do so.  It was not too much that when you expressed your desire for kids, he disappeared, or that he came back saying that he's sterile, then vanished again.  So far, this "relationship" is completely on his terms, and you are hanging on his every whim, like. . . well, like a teen with their first love.

It's like you took a snapshot of him at that time, over a decade ago, and you're in love with a photograph, not the real guy.  You're dying to get back that hormone fueled fusion the two of you shared, which, even then, was rooted in you pursuing and him distancing.

I understand your strong desire for a relationship -- the part of your letter that was about your longing for love, fun, and sex was the most relatable piece.  However, I have to be the un-fun boundaries holder that you no longer wish to be.

Reality is, none of your friends' loves are as easy as they seem from the outside.  Love is always messy, fraught with doubt, and everyone eventually has to do massive amounts of work to come to a good place with the other person.

To sum up, dear Deja Vu, Step One is to meet this guy.  Go ahead, have sex with him, get all your curiosity and teenage dreams fulfilled.  However, if there is even a glimmer of the pursuer-distancer pattern between you in person that you've established across the miles these past few months, run, Lola, run.  You don't want to spend your life offering him things just so he can turn them down.

I know you want a relationship with a long-term partner.  However, don’t settle for Old Flame if it turns out he’s really just looking for a flash in the pan.

Love,

Sibyl

More or Less Like Family, Part IV

By Molly Bradley Read Parts I, II, and III

That evening found my siblings and me in the family room before dinner. I could smell it; I was hungrier than I’d been in a long time. I’d walked further than I had in days---it wasn’t much but it felt good. Earning things felt good, in any small way I could earn them.

Mamadou stepped inside. Instead of watching TV on his feet awhile and then sitting down, as he usually did, he addressed me immediately.

“Molly.”

I looked up. So did several of my siblings. Then I looked around: Binta wasn’t there. Neither was Hangout Girl. Khady, however, looked nervous again.

“Can I show you some things now?” he asked.

I glanced at Khady. She looked quickly down to the mat beneath her, picking bits of stuffing out of a hole in its casing.

“I think we’re going to eat soon,” I told him.

“It’s not ready yet,” he said. “I saw them. The rice has only started to cook. I will not take long,” he added.

“Alright.” I stood. I didn’t look to see who was looking at me, or not, as I followed Mamadou out of the room.

His room was right next door. There was a mat on the ground, a few trunks of his belongings, and three or four folding chairs. He must have had company relatively often.

He gestured toward one of the chairs, and took a seat himself on the trunk beside it. From beneath his mattress, within an arm’s reach, he pulled a ratty folder full of papers. He opened it and began to show me what was inside. Documents, forms: a visa application; passport-sized photos; an old school report. The picture of him photocopied on the report looked much like him now.

“I went back to school later,” he said. “I went when I was little, but then I had my siblings, and they needed school. So I went back after, to finish high school.”

We looked through teachers’ comments. He read them to me, slowly. The handwriting was almost illegible. Either he knew his teachers’ writing very well, or he’d read and reread these hundreds of times. I’m sure he could have told them to me off the top of his head. Mamadou is a very good student and wants very much to learn. Mr. Bah is slowly learning the language, but he has a lot of patience for the work. Mamadou is a good student who deserves not to be so timid in the classroom.

At the back of the folder was a slim notebook, like French cahiers brouillon: soft-cover booklets with exceptionally thin paper and faded grid markings. Every page was filled with Mamadou’s handwriting. His letters were round and small, but the stems reached high and low, tangling with the lines above and below.

“These are songs that I wrote,” he told me. “I know I can’t – I know I must work and do this---” he gestured out the window, vaguely toward the onion fields---“but I would really like to sing. I think singers are the most good people.”

He began to read me his songs. They were all titled in a self-explanatory fashion: “The Hussling Life,” “I Love You Baby,” “It Is For My Family.” After the titles, though, the lyrics startled me: they were frank, and they were true. I couldn’t help but smile a little every time he used “hustling”---on the page, “hussling”---to refer to work.

He paused before reading “It Is For My Family.”

“I have not seen them in many years,” he said. “It’s for them that I’m here. Yes I want to go to Europe, England, America, but more important is that they are there.” I caught the slip of Wolof into English. The way to say that you’re fine, or that your family is well, is maangi fi rekk, or nungi fi rekk: I am here only, or they are here only. That they are in existence in the world is, perhaps, enough.

I read along as he read aloud. The lyrics weren’t spaced traditionally with short four-line verses: all the sentences ran together, every line full. He didn’t heed the margin, either. The page was brimming with ink.

He wrote the song to his father, his mother, his sister, his brother. There was nothing really singular about what he wrote---nothing about the song was specific to him at all. All the song really said, very plainly, was that he missed them.

“I really like that one,” I said.

He was silent. We both looked at the words on the page.

Mamadou shuffled things around again and returned to the front of the folder, to some photographs we’d skipped initially. He flipped through them, and introduced me to the people in each.

“I want to give you one,” he said. “You pick one picture.”

“I couldn’t take that from you,” I said. There were none of him alone, and I didn’t want to deprive him of seeing his own friends or family.

“I want to give one to you,” he insisted. “I want you to think of me.”

He let me flip through the pictures again, slowly. I paused at one of him and some friends. He and three men occupied most of the photograph, one of them crouching in front of the others standing, in a field of green. Definitely onion fields. I’d never seen anything so lush.

“These are my friends where I worked somewhere else,” he said. Mamadou was definitely the coolest of the crew, standing shirtless in the sun, shades on his face, pointing one hand toward the camera in a gotcha gesture or like a thumb-and-forefinger gun. In the other hand he held up a leaf from the fields where he worked, where the four of them stood. The crouching man, though---“my best friend in that place”---had the best smile.

I made my choice. He was about to put everything away when I asked, “Could you write that song---the one about family---on the back of this picture?”

He paused. “Give you this song?”

“No, not the book---I mean can you copy it, write it again, on this photo?”

He thought a minute, then nodded. I watched those small round letters appear by his hand on the sleek back of the picture. He murmured the words as he went, correcting mistakes from the first copy, making new ones on this second.

“Thank you,” I said when he was done. “This is really---” I was going to say nice of you, generous of you, thoughtful of you---something equally inane. I’m almost glad Binta’s entrance cut me off.

She stood still in the doorway for a second before she said, “Mama. On mange.” We’re eating.

When I returned to the family room, everyone was indeed already eating. I held my spoon and reached reluctantly, guiltily. I probably didn’t deserve dinner, for having disobeyed orders. I was ready to pay my dues---but then, as usual, my siblings collectively noticed I was being timid and all began insisting, “Mange, Mama! Mange!”

 ***

I said goodbye to as many siblings as I could the following morning. All the students had to leave their families, wherever they were living, and meet in the town square at eleven. When the time came I couldn’t find a lot of the little ones. Some were at school, I was told; others were off somewhere playing with friends.

Khady clung to my waist and kissed it. She said she couldn’t promise to text me because she didn’t have her own cell phone, but maybe Binta would let her use hers. Over Khady’s head I looked at Binta, who shrugged. Khady released me and at first I didn’t make a move. But Binta came and wrapped me in a tight hug.

“Be good,” she told me. “Be careful.” She squeezed my shoulders, then let me go with a smile. I hadn’t seen that soft a smile on her before.

Hangout Girl had been hanging behind Binta. Now she came and held my arms at my sides to give me a clumsy bise, one kiss on either cheek, the way the French do. She snickered as she and Binta turned and went back inside the family room.

I said goodbye to my parents and held their hands while I thanked them. Before I left the place I looked toward Mamadou’s room, and I thought of asking where he was. But I knew, and we’d had enough of a goodbye. I had his name, address, and photograph. And his song.

He wasn’t there, but leaving my family felt more like leaving him. I wished I were going for his sake---were going to Saint Louis to find things to send back to him. Not necessarily money, but postcards, pictures, books. Music, certainly. Maybe a world map.

Khady helped me carry my bags to the town square. It was in part a parting, and in part a homecoming. I was relieved to see the friends I’d come to know so well in Dakar, to speak English, to joke around without explanation. We were all exhausted and ready to go.

Khady got quiet around all of the reunion noise. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“Don’t take out the braids,” she said.

“I’m going to have to, later,” I said. “But I won’t ever be as pretty again as I am now.”

She smiled. First it was tender, and then it was just smug. Another student’s host sister was watching our exchange. Khady stuck her tongue out at the scrawny girl and squeezed my hand back.

On the bus to Saint Louis we were chattering like children with new words. A few other students had seen the onion fields.

“They didn’t let me do anything,” said my friend Arielle. “The men just laughed when I asked if I could help.”

I thought of Mamadou and his perfect willingness to let me be a part of his work, a part of things. I could see sweating Mamadou, buckets in hand, sprinting (as well as he could) across my father’s field. I thought of him hustling his way up the coast of Africa, edging slowly, stoically and slowly edging up and out of his continent for mine, either of them.

“They wanted to let me. They tried,” I said, “but I don’t think I did much.”

Both Sides

One year, shortly before we were to leave for Christmas Eve mass, and hours before the entire family was to descend on our house to celebrate the holiday, the basement pipes exploded. My father---not the handiest, to be sure---valiantly tried to patch the pipes, while balancing precariously on a folding chair. My mom’s parting words, as we fled the scene and my dad was almost electrocuted by the water gushing through the overhead lights, were not thoughts of concern, but threats in regards to my father fixing things FAST---and most certainly before our guests arrived. It turned out that the busted pipes were the result of a backed-up garbage disposal and 100% my mom’s fault. I can’t remember the culprit on this particular occasion, but she was known to put literally everything but the kitchen sink down the disposal---and that was only because to do so would have been impossible. Everything else was fair game, including the carcass from the Thanksgiving turkey. The actual events that unfolded on this particular holiday were unusual, but the stress and anxiety that came with the busted pipes were par for the course. My mom had a habit of spending the majority of the day, before a holiday or other special event, in a state of panic. She rushed all of us through showers and outfit changes, erupting from time to time as her stress level rose throughout the day. But without fail, regardless of the outbursts and pacing and hours of unnecessary tension, a much different scene played out as we, a family of five, were seemingly ready to leave the house.  While my sisters and I sat waiting in the backseat of the family car, arguing over who had to sit in the middle, and my dad stood waiting at the front door, my mom’s coat in hand, she slowly---patiently, even---applied one last coat of nail polish. She wore acrylics at the time (it was the ‘80s---who didn’t?) and I remember them as long and bright. My dad then led the way to the car, opening and closing doors for her, to prevent any smudged nails. She never seemed even slightly ruffled by this last minute detour, while the rest of us huffed and puffed, now waiting on her. Punctuality was not her strong suit back then, except when it came to weddings and funerals, a golden rule she reminded us of repeatedly. My aunt captured this perfectly, noting that “Your mom is always speeding, yet always still late.”

Oh yes, and the speeding. My mom came close to losing her license more than once, due to her propensity for putting the “pedal to the metal," as she called it. There’s folklore in the family of one such incident, involving a swim lesson drop-off for my sisters. I was still a baby, too young for lessons, but along for the ride anyway. With three kids packed into the car, and most likely running late, I screamed for the entire ride. A mile from swim lessons, speeding through a notoriously monitored area, you might guess what happened next. A police officer pulled out from behind my mom, turning his lights on. With a screaming baby and two whining kids in the car, my mom made the only logical decision: she ignored the flashing lights behind her. For five minutes, she calmly led the police officer to her intended destination. Once there, she finally pulled over, delivering my sisters to their lesson on time and feigning innocence to any and all infractions of the law.

My mom wanted things done how she wanted them, when she wanted them. She was known to direct my dad about a given household task in one breath---power washing the back windows or painting the family room, for instance---and in the next, pull out the ladder to start the painting herself. We hosted a bridal shower together a few years ago, planning to cook much of the brunch food ourselves on the morning of the shower. I woke to the smell of eggs and ham and the sounds of a very busy kitchen downstairs. She just could not be bothered waiting for me---or anyone, for that matter. Once, while visiting my sister in Atlanta, she decided that the pictures in the bedroom were hung entirely too high. Rather than waiting to discuss this observation with my sister, she took care of it in her own way: by re-hanging each and every picture while Meg was in the shower. I wasn’t there, but I have no doubt that she also told my sister exactly what she thought of her decorating skills, or lack thereof.  Her now infamous statement, “I’m not going to say a word,” was always followed by the exact opposite, and I’m not proud of how often I cut our conversations short when she didn’t agree with me. What I wouldn't give to hear her opinion on anything right now, solicited or not.

The thing is, my mom wasn't perfect. She was impatient and opinionated, bossy and loud. She broke rules that she didn't find important. She lived by her truths, her own moral code. A note I received after my mom died has stuck with me, almost a year later. A friend's mom wrote that although she did not know her well, she got the sense that my mom was fun. And she was right. My mom was also loving, and kind, and generous, and open-hearted, and funny, and honest. She will forever be the mother, the matriarch, the friend, the hostess, the woman that I strive to be. And not in spite of her imperfections---but because of them. As time passes and my memories mellow, I need to remember it all: the good and the bad. Both sides.

Reclamation

How do we reclaim spaces and moments that we used to exist in and define ourselves by? Loss takes with it pieces of our daily lives---pieces that sustained us and brought joy to our lives---whether we lost a home, a community, a relationship, or a person. I’ve experienced moments of mild unease or anxiety in returning to places that used to be “home,” or meeting up with people who used to feel like “home,” re-doing activities I used to do in relationships that felt like “home.” However, there is power in reclaiming these as my own; there is power in actively creating my own home. During this chilly winter season, I have been reminded of how reclamation is a powerful part of my own healing process.

Nearly seven years ago, on a typical sunny day in Colorado, my father was killed in an avalanche. He was skiing inbounds at a resort, following the rules. Without much conscious thought, I put my love of skiing (and winter outdoorsy-ness in general) in a metaphorical closet, nervous to tempt fate and to unsettle my own emotional healing.

My most recent story of reclamation happened this past weekend, among friends, high spirits, and blistery icy slopes in Maine. Leading up to the trip, I approached downhill skiing as something “I used to love” or that “I can still do moderately well.” Since my father’s death, it ceased to be a defining factor in my life. I had skied a few times in the years between that day and this past weekend, the most significant being a visit to the run he died on. The blue and white sign at the top of the run now reads “David’s run.” But, that experience, was more a sense of visiting---visiting the place he died, visiting his world---it wasn’t mine.

In Maine, I chased guy friends, who will always ski faster than me but are willing to pause to let me catch up, down the icy slopes. In some moments I felt transferred back into childhood, peacefully enjoying my skis gliding over powdery snow. In other moments I struggled, silently cursing the ice and shrubs sticking out of the snow. A sense of bliss followed the entire experience, aided by the surprise of still knowing how to ski and the forging of new friendships---where we share values related to being outside. Values that represent “home” for me. I am not sure what exact transformation took place or on which ski run, but skiing felt comfortable and peaceful. I can welcome the world of skiing and the community it encompasses back into my life.

Central to the outdoorsy world I grew up in, my family spent holidays at a YMCA camp tucked away in the Rocky Mountains. The camp is set between downhill ski resorts and hundreds of miles of cross country skiing. It is a gorgeous winter heaven. The year after my father died, we retreated to one of these cabins for a painful and lonely Christmas. We passed the holiday estranged from each other, engulfed in our individual grief. The camp felt haunted by childhood memories and impossible images of the future without my father.

It was six years before we plotted our return this past December. Together, we visited a sign the camp constructed in memory of my father. This year, the same space felt peaceful and healing. I felt my family take a collective deep breath and embrace this space, which was once ours and now is ours again. Reclaimed.

Curled up by the wood fire, I smiled as my mom and sister took out old card games, which contained records of highest and lowest scores throughout the history of our family playing the game. They lightheartedly reminisced about my dad’s competitiveness and my grandmother’s love of dominos with joyful memories of past holidays. As the pain withdrew from the memories over the years, we stepped back into our relationships with each other and again became a family that visits the places where it grew together over and over again to make new memories.

The Same but Not Equal

I’m a big believer in asking questions.  Lots of them. Ask until you understand or until the person you’re talking to runs out of explanations, then ask some more. There’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a few years now. What’s the difference between marriages and civil unions and why is it important.  From the outside looking in, I just didn’t understand, not really.  Was it a name thing, like you say potato I say potahto? Was it an injustice, a matter of civil liberties? Was it black and white or shades of grey? Was there a right answer? I just didn’t know. And I didn’t ask enough questions.  I didn’t push for answers or ask the folks who would know, and I had opportunities to. I accepted that it was different, that it was less than, and that was a bad thing. But I didn’t really get it.

Sometimes you experience something and it strikes you to your core.  Maybe you read it, maybe you saw it, maybe you heard it, but all of a sudden there is a wealth of knowledge and emotion that wasn’t there before.  That’s how I felt this week when I read This.

I have a cousin who lives in Illinois.  She’s quite simply amazing, and when Illinois passed legislation allowing civil unions she and her equally awesome girlfriend joined thousands of other couples and got unionized (no, that’s not a real word). They’ve been a couple for longer than my husband and I, so as I was reading the article I couldn’t help compare, my relationship to hers.

For example, I’m married everywhere I go.  Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, Mount Rushmore and Disney World.  Always Married.  My cousin is legally committed only in the state of Illinois.  Only.  If she so much as crosses the border into Indiana, poof, she’s single.  Her legally recognized partner is now her girlfriend.  And those rights she has in Illinois, don’t apply in Indiana.  She has no legal claim, no legal responsibility, no legal anything with a woman she has committed to.

If my husband and I are (god forbid) in a car crash in Tennessee, I have rights. I can talk to the doctors, I can make decisions for him and about his health if he were unable to do so himself.  My cousin and her girlfriend might as well be college roommates for the legal rights they would have in such a situation.  I cannot imagine the pain and helplessness of such a situation.  I think of my husband. I think of the unthinkable, if something happened to him, and I was told I had no say, no rights, no voice. I don’t know how I wouldn’t live in fear of that every day.  I don’t know how that wouldn’t break me, the mere thought of it.

I hesitated before writing this.  I hardly ever talk politics, even with my closest friends and family, for several reasons---one of them being I believe people have the right to make choices, and just because someone makes a different choice doesn’t mean that they’re wrong and I’m right, it just means we made different choices.  Did I really want to get political on the Equals Record?  Then I realized two things: one, just because this has been made to be a political issue, does not mean that is all it is. And two---this is the Equals Record.  So maybe it’s a good place to talk about equality.

I believe my cousin is equal to me in every way but those she surpasses me.  I believe her heart and her brain are roughly equal to mine as are her abilities to reason, to make decisions, and to love.  She and I are both the same in that we love another.  But that is where the similarities end, at least for now. One of us is married, and one is not.  I don’t have the words to express how wrong that is. To express the injustice. To express the pain and the fight.  I just don’t have them. I hope someone else does.

Sacagawea: Guide. Interpreter. American Symbol.

 

She adorns our dollar coins and she makes a cameo in almost every fifth-grade textbook, but how much do you really know about Sacagawea?

If you’re like me, not that much. It’s all very gratifying to imagine the stalwart Native American guide for the Lewis & Clark expedition leading her white hosts over mountains and across rivers, all while carting a small baby on her back in a leather baby-sack; but the real story is both less romantic and potentially more impressive.

Sacagawea was born to a Shoshone tribe in present-day Idaho around 1788, just a few years after a certain British colony had gained independence on the other side of the continent. When she was 11 or 12, a battle with the Hidatsa Indians resulted in Sacagawea’s capture and transport to what is now North Dakota.

It was here that young Sacagawea met the man who would be her husband—one Toussaint Charbonneau, a Quebecois fur trapper who was living amongst the Hidatsa tribe. I can just picture the bearded man’s man, covered in mangy fox fur, courting the thirteen-year-old (yuck) Shoshone transplant in the snowy wastelands of North Dakota. Let’s be honest. No one will ever make a love story out of it.

A few years later, two dudes named Lewis and Clark were on their way to chart the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory, of Louisiana Purchase fame, and they enlisted Charbonneau to help guide and interpret. Sacagawea was an added bonus: since they would largely be passing through Shoshone territory (oops---I mean America), her expertise in that language was an asset.

The romantic images of Sacagawea summiting mountain crests, arm outstretched to beckon a weary but bright-eyed Lewis and Clark into the next gleaming American valley, are kind of, well, idealized. Surprising, I know. In reality, Sacagawea served as more of an interpreter than an actual guide, and Lewis and Clark frequently make reference to her as “the squar [squaw],” “the wife of Charbonneau,” and, inexplicably, “Janey.” Ever so occasionally, by her actual name (or more, their best approximation of it).

At one point, the expedition nearly lost a boatload of letters and other important crap that Lewis and Clark were toting around. Sacagawea speedily retrieved the items before they sank or were swept away; and in gratitude, the pair named the waterway the Sacagawea River.

Which kinda seems like a really typical Lewis/Clark move to pull, if you know what I mean. “Oh geez, thanks, Sacagawea! . . . You know what I’m gonna do? This river? I’m gonna name it after you. There. It’s been named. I’ve decreed it. From now on, everyone will call this the Sacagawea River. Okay, let’s keep moving. Keep up.”

Which she did, even with a baby on her back. The baby, Jean Baptiste, was a big hit with the guys. Clark liked the little guy so much that, it seems, years later, after Sacagawea’s death, he adopted him. (Toussaint was still alive, but probably kind of a deadbeat, anyway.)

While Sacagawea’s role in the Lewis and Clark expedition can be overstated, it doesn’t diminish the significance of what she did. Her knowledge opened up new frontiers to the American explorers, and she was hence able to practice an autonomy and freedom of movement unknown to most other American or native women of her time. It’s been speculated that another of her important roles in the expedition was to serve as a symbol of peace—most native groups understood that the presence of a woman in a party meant there were no intentions of war. (Which in and of itself is an interesting kind of powerful not-power. For more on this, read Juliana Barr’s excellent Peace Came in the Form of a Woman.)

In the end we all know very little about Sacagawea, the person. The images that adorn our statues and our numismatics are based on the faces of more contemporary Shoshone women, as no likenesses of S herself have survived the centuries. We don’t even know when she died---while most believe she died in 1812, just a few years after the expedition, some think she actually lived to a ripe old age and eventually returned to her people in Idaho.

But who needs an accurate likeness or a detailed minutiae of her life? What we can say, is. . . the fact that she’s remembered so well when almost all we have to go off of are some scant, fairly dismissive mentions in the journals of two important men, means she’s a pretty damn important woman. That’s only logical.