Semiramis: Ancient Woman of Mystery.

The first reason I wanted to write about Semiramis was because of her cool name, and the second was because I hadn’t written about an ancient historical woman since my first post on Hatshepsut. Lack of sources and all that.

But after just a cursory scan of her Wikipedia page, my interest was very much piqued, more because of what wasn’t there than what was. It’s true that with ancient figures, as opposed to modern ones, the lack of sources can be crippling. Photographs and phonographic recordings are certainly easier to interpret than crumbling papyrus scrolls. But even as far as ancients go, Semiramis’s life is a complete mystery. And yet, this hasn’t prevented a whole bunch of people—mostly men—from liberally inventing her life story in a whole bunch of ways.

The real Semiramis was probably actually an Assyrian queen named Shammuramat who, following her husband Shamshi-Adad V’s death, ruled as regent for her young son from 810 to 806 BCE. Her actual looks, personality, and accomplishments are shrouded in that aforementioned mystery—though, at the very least, we know she spent a few years in charge of the Neo-Assyrian Empire at its powerful height, with a rule spanning from Asia Minor to western Iran. The neighboring Greeks, Iranians, and Indians probably fueled the Semiramis legend due to their contact with the Assyrian empire during her reign. Average Greek/Iranian/Indian guy: “Those Assyrians are badass and they’re ruled by a woman? Man, she must be super hardcore, bro.” (It’s my theory that bros are not a new phenomenon.)

Beyond that, Shammuramat/Semiramis’s life gets murky. But like I said, a whole bunch of people over the centuries—mostly men—can tell you plenty about her. Here’s a brief rundown of the, shall we say, creative Semiramis interpretations:

Ancient Greeks and Persians believed her to be the legendary queen of king Ninus of Babylon, who oversaw the building of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century BCE, devoted a lot of ink (or stone chisels, or whatever) to Semiramis in his The Library of History. According to Diodorus, she was the daughter of a fish goddess (!) that was raised by doves (!!) and then married to the Babylonian king Ninus. When Ninus died, she pretended to be her son for forty-two years (kind of a more soap-opera version of serving as regent), and during that time commanded armies, conquered Libya and Ethiopia, built palaces, and waged an unsuccessful campaign in India which included an army of mechanical elephants (!!!). However, Dio S. refuted the popular claim that she built the Hanging Gardens, noting that these were built after her time by Nebuchadnezzar (owner of one of the best names any king has had, period).

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian, claimed Semiramis invented eunuchs— yes—initiating the practice of castrating male youth. Others also said she invented the chastity belt. (I hear those words, my mind still goes to Maid Marian’s steel padlocked underwear in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)

Armenian tradition depicted her as a harlot—in a traditional story, she killed the Armenian king Ara the Beautiful after he refused her hand in marriage.

Dante put her in the Second Circle of Hell, along with Helen of Troy, in his Inferno. Probably another one of those “harlot” things.

Alexander Hislop, the 19^th-century Protestant minister, wrote about her in his The Two Babylons (1853) and placed her in biblical tradition. According to Alex H., she was the consort of Nimrod, builder of the Tower of Babel, and she deified herself as the Sumerian goddess Ishtar, mother of Gilgamesh. Later Catholic tradition was based on Semiramis’s Ishtar legend—including the Virgin Mary—which, essentially, allowed Hislop to equate Catholicism with paganism. (Which leads me to question, where does that leave Protestantism? But I haven’t read this masterpiece of theological inquiry, so I won’t judge, beyond the fact that I just sarcastically called it a masterpiece of theological inquiry.)

On top of all this, Semiramis has been the subject of silent and talkie films (Queen of Babylon, 1954; I am Semiramis, 1963), operas (Rossini’s Semaride; Meyerbeer’s Semaride), plays (Voltaire’s Semiramis, a brief mention in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus), and 18^th-century paintings (both paintings shown here; Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s Semiramis Inspecting a Plan of Babylon), among other things. Now all that’s missing in terms of namesakes is a feminist pop culture website (a la Jezebel).

Like Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, and a host of other ancient women, Semiramis has become synonymous with female licentiousness and sexual immorality, a symbol of woman’s role as earthly temptation. But she has also been attributed qualities of leadership, daring, ambition, courage, and empire-building. She’s even been called a fish goddess’s daughter---which sounds like the name of an Amy Tan novel.

So the stories are obviously all a little different. But for me, the striking common thread is, again, the way that Semiramis serves as an empty vessel, whether that’s for themes of sexual immorality, leadership, divinity, or what have you. Basically, she served whatever purpose the dude---storyteller, scroll-writer, Enlightenment playwright, or silent film director---had in mind, informed by the cultural context of the times through which her legacy was passed down. And these contexts tended to be supremely male-centric, Bible-obsessed, and probably Orientalist.

In this, then, Semiramis's story is not so different from the story of women today. Sure, we’ve come a long way. Yet women often continue to serve as symbols of societal morality, to be talked about with or without women’s participation. There are public debates about how women should dress, how women should behave sexually, how women should balance work and home life. There are political debates about rape, birth control, abortion. There are humanitarian debates about women in other countries---most recently, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky made a splash---and how their dress, rights, cultural roles represent the relative freedom and, perhaps, morality of their societies. (And maybe whether or not we should invade them.)

So as awesome as all the stories about Semiramis are, as an ancient woman of historical legend, I think the most interesting thing about her is that she has secrets. That, maybe, I can relate to.

Looking Forward: Starting Over.

"Bad news,” wrote my friend Natalie, in a g-chat a couple of weeks ago. “Mercury isn’t even in retrograde yet.” We’d had a conversation the day before about the challenges, the kinks and quirks, the general weirdness of the year thus far. We’d speculated that there must be some sort of cosmic explanation for all of it.

Apparently, we were wrong. “What does this mean for us?” I asked.

“Shit hits the fan February 23rd,” she replied.

“Maybe I’ll hibernate,” I wrote back.

---

Two nights later, I met a new friend for drinks at a bar in my neighborhood.

We talked about traveling. Boys. The year ahead. I told her that 2012 had been the hardest year of my life, and that I suspected 2013 wasn’t going to be much easier.

Slowly, over the course of the next couple hours, other friends trickled in, pulled up chairs, joined the conversation.

Lily told us about her new job, selling shoes to Brooklyn toddlers. “Today, a child peed in the teepee at the shop,” she said. “And I haven’t sold a single shoe.”

Jamie recounted a conversation she’d had earlier that night with an ex-boyfriend. “I just don’t love him anymore,” she told us.

“I can’t stop crying,” said Megan.

In the back of the bar, a man played guitar and sang raucous renditions of what sounded like sea shanties. “What is this, a pirate ship?” someone said, nose wrinkled. The crowd at the table next to us stomped their feet, jumped up and down, clapped their hands to the beat. A chair fell backward, hitting the ground with a thud.

“Let’s start over,” someone suggested. “Let’s make tonight New Years Eve."

So at midnight (actually, for honesty’s sake, it was 12:06), we toasted the New Year. It was February 24^th.

“Here’s to a wonderful year,” I shouted.

I thought of something my dad had written once: Life is worth celebrating, Every day probably, but every other day definitely.

Yes, definitely.

We clinked glasses. The pirate sang. Around us, everybody danced.

How To Train Your Dragon: Letting Doubt Into Marriage

Dear Sibyl, I am writing because I feel afraid. I got married in August to a man I adore and feel such a comfort with, but we are so different in every way (not the least of which being that I am a minister/chaplain and he is not a person of faith, and our cultural differences). We have had conflicts over the last four years that I would call "normal" for most couples but this weekend was one of those conflicts that left me wracked with doubts.

Doubts like "with this divorce rate what am I thinking?? Are we going to make it?? Is this rocky adjustment period a horrible sign or is it just the reality of marriage?"

He is a genuinely good man. My family loves him. I can be myself around him---except on nights like this when I am super defensive and analytical and miss my parents like a two year old does and cry nonstop. Then we have to go to separate corners.

Anyway, I thought that better than blogging about this would be writing to someone who seems to find the beauty and depth precisely in the imperfections of life and relationships. So I am wondering if you are someone who has somehow made all this work, against all odds.

I hope against hope that we can too.

Sincerely,

Newlywedded but Doubting Bride

Dear Newlywedded,

It's beautiful that you are allowing doubt into your relationship.  Doubt is the creature that lurks at the door, and you fear it, imagining a dragon, when really you should let it in and set a place for it at the table.  Once it's been well fed and seen in the light, you'll see its scales will fall off and transform into something more human.

My husband and I have been married for nearly a decade.  We have had our share of bitter heartbreaking periods in that ten year span, but are now in a place that is so good, that we often joke that we should produce some "It Gets Better" videos for young couples who are starting out and wondering why on earth they should stick with something so tragically difficult.  The fact that it is hard is the very reason it turns out to be so rewarding, as time goes on.

Everything gets better if you stick with it: the sex, the communication, the spiritual connection.  Just this past weekend we lay in each other's arms, totally naked, wrapped around each other like ribbons on a May Pole.  Our time together was brief---soon we'd have to hit the grocery store to get food for dinner, pick up our child from the babysitter, and be back to the grind of life.  But that moment felt infinite, as we bared our hearts and bodies to each other.

So, what advice would I give to a newlywed, especially one with some big differences to overcome?

1. Let each other grow and change, even if it looks like you are growing in different ways.  Lets go back to the ivy branch image from last week, as a metaphor for a relationship.  As you grow, you branch out in different directions, but you also twine together in places, always coming back to the same root and source, which is your love for one another.  Don't be afraid of his interests that are different from yours---encourage them.  Give him time and space to explore those very things that you don't enjoy---but also take an interest in them, at the very least asking him to explain to you why they are so meaningful to him.

2. Learn to fight.  One of the first lessons my husband taught me, when we were first dating, was that I couldn't curse at him and lose my mind in our arguments.  It took some practice, but rather than saying, "Aw, forget it, I just won't talk about this stuff with you", I worked on it, and we found a way to talk about the hard stuff with respect.  The biggest mistake I see couples make is avoiding difficult topics.  I have seen that ruin marriages more than anything else.  Marriage is all about getting in to those sticky places in life that you were hoping to just skate by, together.  Try to have a sense of humor in the midst of it---my husband and I have found that being able to make each other laugh is the best way to defuse an argument and get to the bottom of what's really bothering us, without our defenses up.

3. Keep having sex.  Just keep doing it.  Sex is a huge bonding agent.  Have you ever noticed that if your communication is just off, and you are snapping at each other more often, that just getting laid really helps?  Yeah, that's because when you meet each other nakedly in the bedroom, you can see each other in kinder light. My husband and I have had major dry spells with sex, but in those times, we have never been okay with it.  It's never been "Oh well, I guess I'm not such a sexual person".  Sex is the glue of the relationship.  So, even when it was infrequent, we were talking about it all the time, trying different things to get it going again.  You have an entire lifetime to figure out each other's bodies, so enjoy.

4. Ask for help when needed.  The early years of marriage are like resistance training workouts---you build the muscles of finding a way to heal what seems totally broken, again and again. You live in hope. And when things seem just too foggy for either of you to see the way through, you get help. I know a couple that goes to a therapist when they feel they need a "tune-up" or have a conflict they can't settle on their own, OR every five years, whatever comes first.  I love this perspective, because it takes the stigma off of the desire to have someone help you with your issues, and creates space for you to allow things to arise between you that are unexpected.  And please don't tell me you can't afford it.  If you invest in making your home nice to live in, your car run well, or your body to feel good, you can spend money on your relationship.

It sounds like you have a good partner at your side, one willing to do the difficult work and share in the spoils of love and creating a life together.  Hold on to one another, for when the really hard times come, you’ll remember that you sailed through stormy waters in the beginning, and came out afloat, doubts and all.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Petya Grady writes about books, art and style at The Migrant Bookclub. The Eastern Europe of her childhood is a frequent point of departure as she explores issues of place, identity, memory and (un)-belonging. She currently lives in Memphis, TN with her husband. I am on a Jackie O kick recently. This comes as a surprise to me so, naturally, I want to talk about it. I grew up in Bulgaria and moved to the States for college in '99. I went to a small private school in rural Tennessee and even though I majored in Political Science, there was not a single thing in my life that ever signaled to me that I should be curious about the former First Lady. Heck, I didn't even care much for her style. Where I come from, a black turtle neck is considered the epitome of chic and although I don't think Jacqueline would have hated that, I did not think we would have much to talk about if we were to ever meet. Until.

About two years ago, I noticed that the New York Times was reviewing not one but two biographies of Jacqueline that focused on her years as a book editor. It came as quite of a surprise to my bookish self. Not only had I never even heard that Ms. O had ever held a job in her life but now I was faced with the very rare experience of having to choose between two books on that very same subject, coming out at the exact same time. What were the chances?!

I picked up William Kuhn's "Reading Jackie" because I liked the cover better. (Please tell me you do that too!!!) Kuhn is straight-forward about the fact that he never had any personal contact with Jackie and that he had very limited access to any of her personal artifacts and/or memorabilia. Jacqueline after all is notorious of her privacy. However, he makes the argument that when one looks at the books she worked on as an editor, first at Viking and then at Doubleday, one can learn quite a bit about her taste, her interests, and her personality. It's the autobiography she never wrote, he says! Reviewers have questioned the rigor of Mr. Kuhn's research and described his work as quite speculative, BUT, the book did leave me with this great feeling of wonder and surprise about its famous subject---a woman touched by so much sadness and tragedy and yet unchanged in her appreciation for beauty, literature and art. What books did she edit, you are probably wondering? William Kuhn's has shared the complete list on his website but here are some highlights: The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales by Boris Zvorykin, My Book of Flowers by Princess Grace of Monaco, Secrets of Marie Antoinette by Olivier Bernier, Blood Memory by Martha Graham (Graham's autobiography). The range in format and subject matter is astounding and Jacqueline comes across as a woman of infinite curiosity and professional drive---so different from her rather vapid public image as a stylish {but somewhat ostentatious} woman.

I've read parts of the book many times since and gifted it more times than I care to remember. I obsessed over it so much that it wasn't actually until I started writing this piece, that I recalled I never went back and picked up the second book that came around that same time---Greg Lawrence's "Jackie as Editor." I've been re-reading some of its reviews and realizing that it may actually be the stronger book of the two. It documents Jackie from the perspective of her co-workers and HER BOSS and is based on Lawrence's meticulous study of her in-line edits, letters and notes she sent to numerous writers, artists, photographers. It sounds so delicious (if a little gossipy) that I am fairly certain I will go ahead and order it as soon as I am done telling you about it.

The book that got me back on this track, however, is Alice Kaplan's recent "Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis". Kaplan draws a surprising group portrait of three of America's most memorable women and sets it in the beautiful, romantic, daunting, lush, and sometimes seedy city of Paris where all three spent significant amounts of time in their most formative years. Each part of the book is wonderful for so many reasons but Jacqueline, again, charmed me most completely for her earnest pursuit of PARIS and herself. Of her time there, she would write later in her essay for a Vogue student writing contest, "I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide." Which, of course, broke my heart a little bit but also made me so happy for her because I knew that after college, after Camelot, and after always being defined as some important man's beautiful significant other, she would grow old in a way that completely nurtured her constant hunger for knowledge without even trying to pretend it was necessary to hide it.

Marissa Mayer's Easy, Breezy Climb

In the PBS Documentary that premiered this week called, Makers: Women Who Make America (about the history of feminism in this country), Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo! and the 14^th most powerful business woman in the world (according to Forbes) said that she does not consider herself a feminist.  In her brief interview, she went on to associate feminism with a “militant drive,” a “chip on the shoulder,” and with a perception of negativity.  You can watch exactly what she said here: Her comments came to my attention because my husband’s Twitter feed was all aflutter (also, aTwitter) with varied responses to her statements.  I had intended to see the documentary the night before, but ultimately decided to save it for the weekend, so I hadn’t seen the clip.  He asked me if I had heard what she said and wasn’t I outraged?  My initial response was tepid — after all, I have heard women (and men) talking about feminism this way my whole life.  I totally understood and in some way related to her desire to dissociate herself from the more “outlandish” or “angry” version of feminism, so dismissed by the mainstream.  After all, this version of feminism is threatening and flips the script on men in traditional positions of power.  The more we discussed it, the more I wondered if it was that Ms. Mayer had been so privileged in her career and social trajectory that she had truly never experienced barriers or that she had so internalized the narrative that women should “go along to get along” that she sincerely couldn’t empathize with “radicals.”

Marissa Mayer, you stand on the shoulders of the women throughout our history who acted out in a way that you might consider ugly.  By all accounts, you earned the daylights out of the position in which you find yourself today.  You are eminently qualified for your job in terms of your education and experience.  You have a reputation for being an unapologetic workaholic.  And yet, you don’t seem to realize that the reason you had access to your education, any of the jobs you have held or the resources and social sanctions to work as hard as you have is because of feminism … the bra-burning kind.  Or, even worse, you are so disconnected from that struggle and have no sense of why women have been forced to be so reactive, that you don’t want to affiliate with that identity.

I want to say here quite clearly that I obviously don’t know Marissa Mayer at all.  I don’t have true insight into what she was thinking when she said those words (that I now can’t stop watching on YouTube).  I also haven’t seen the entire context of the interview, which might soften the seemingly cut-and-dried indictment of her sisters in arms.  I do know that when you have achieved that kind of status (breezily climbing the ladder, she seems to believe), the public has a tendency to hang on your every word, particularly in the context of being interviewed about your extraordinary accomplishments in a documentary about FEMINISM.

This also comes on the heels of her establishing a company-wide ban on working from home.  Flexible scheduling and telecommuting have been cornerstone achievements in establishing equality in the workplace.  Introducing the idea that the work environments could and should be more flexible has boosted the careers of both women AND men in recent decades and allowed both parties to be more available for childcare, among other things.  Many studies, including this 2009 study by major corporate employer Cisco found that people are actually more productive and satisfied with their jobs when they have this flexibility.  This is particularly salient for women, for whom the traditional work structure is still punitive when they have children and prevents them from keeping pace with their male counterparts in terms of advancement.

And what about Marissa Mayer and her own, personal, work-life balance?  She made history when she was hired by Yahoo! as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever and immediately announced that she was also five months pregnant.  Working mothers everywhere glommed on to her story, waiting with bated breath to see how this would all play out.  She ended up working from home during the end of her pregnancy, took only two weeks of maternity leave and had a special nursery built next to her office at Yahoo! so she could be close to her newborn after her lightning fast return to work.  I don’t have to tell you what a poor model this is for working women and how nobody else on planet earth has the money or power to build a nursery next to their office and bring their infant to work.  Maybe Oprah or Martha.  Maybe.

I write this on a day when Congress has finally voted to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act.  Shockingly, despite the description of what the act aims to prevent being right in the title, this wasn’t remotely a done deal.  In fact, it was kind of a squeaker.  138 Members of Congress (Republicans, all) ultimately voted against it.  It sort of makes me wonder where we might rustle up a bunch of feminists to demonstrate the appropriate level of fury?

I hope that as Marissa Mayer evolves in her career, she might reconsider her notion of feminism as negative.  It is, rather simply, the entire reason she has a career.  I get that she pictures feminists only as wearing combat boots and reading poetry about their vaginas.  But, she is in a position of vast power and has great wealth and we could use her in the trenches.  We could use another woman who fits all the classical norms of beauty and prominence to publicly recognize that there is still so much work to be done.

Stranger Here

I am excited to present to you the trailer for Jen Larsen's forthcoming memoir, Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed With My Head. Written and narrated by Jen Larsen, music composed and performed by Jared Holdaway, animated and directed by me.

Bloopers reel:

Behind the scenes:

Read more about the book here: jenlarsen.net Read about how the montage in this video came to be here.

I've Got a Perfect Body

The title of this post most definitely does not reflect my personal relationship with my own body, oh no of course not, though (as we will discuss) I wish it did. It’s a line from a Regina Spektor song (“Folding Chair,” from 2009’s Far) that rolls through my head sometimes, which I absolutely love:

“I’ve got a perfect body / But sometimes I forget / I’ve got a perfect body / ‘Cause my eyelashes catch my sweat”

I love how this little sentiment subverts our expectation as to how one’s body should be judged. What is the “perfect body” anyway? Who is it for? Yourself, or everyone else?

Last week I visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, a dark and morbidly fascinating collection of medical specimens and wax models of human oddities housed in a physicians’ college. Most of the specimens date back to the early twentieth century and have that curio cabinet look about them, though they were ostensibly used for legitimate research purposes.

A lot of it was interesting—all of it left me feeling a little queasy. The models and specimens were, for the most part, divorced from the experience of the human who was afflicted, and were presented as isolated parts (syphilitic skulls, tumored eyes). Cold, scientific. But one exhibit I found to be sympathetic and particularly heartbreaking.

This exhibit showed a series of photographs of a boy who lived in the middle of the twentieth century. In the first photograph, he is a beaming 5-year-old boy who has just recovered from a fractured leg bone and is standing tall in his little 1940s shorts. In the next photograph, he is about 7, and we can see that something is wrong with his leg—it’s growing a bit crooked, skinny, weak. The photographs continue over the years, and soon we see that the malformation of his leg has also affected his posture. He can only stand with his head stooped forward, one shoulder collapsed, as he shoots up over six feet with one healthy leg and one long, crooked, bone-thin leg. In each of these later photographs he stares straight at the camera, stoic, defeated, with an air of despair. He died when he was about 40.

This was someone who would not be able to walk through a crowd without attracting strange looks, revulsion and/or pity. This was, I suppose, an imperfect body, one that had trouble functioning, one whose skeleton (or a facsimile thereof) was placed on display in a goddamn curio cabinet. Because of one long, pronounced flaw.

On the other end of the spectrum is the story of the Ukrainian Barbie “trend” that’s been circulating on the Internet—girls who are quite literally striving for physical perfection. Through plastic surgery and hardcore makeup regimens, women like Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeriya Lukyanova attempt to achieve the exaggerated proportions and pert, doll-like features of Barbie dolls and anime characters. It’s alarming and simply cannot be healthy, physically, mentally, or emotionally—yet this is their choice. This, according to their interviews, is what makes them happy and comfortable. Including possibly having ribs surgically removed to get that perfect tiny waist.

What is perfection? I think it’s worth asking ourselves that question. Whether or not we admit to it, there must be some idea of “the perfect” that we consciously or unconsciously believe in. If there was no “perfect,” there would be no such thing as flaws. Or if there were, they would be things like a malformed leg that made walking difficult and required medical attention---not a bit of cellulite or ears that turn out too wide.

In a recent Jezebel piece, Tracy Moore points out that it is often realism, not insecurity, that informs women’s reluctance to describe themselves as “pretty” (or, when they do, to qualify it with their numerous flaws or non-normative traits).

“For them, it wasn't that they couldn't think they were pretty. It was that they all knew, after lifetimes of being shown images of what is pretty, cute, beautiful or not in staggering detail, EXACTLY what kind of pretty they are or aren't, to what type of person they were most appealing, to what degree their prettiness abounds. Just saying they were pretty without acknowledging the exceptions seemed to be like admitting that you didn't understand how pretty works. And ‘pretty’ isn't a permanent state, either: it's a complicated, evolving assessment, discussed with a detached, almost economic appraisal.”

I get that “pretty” or “beautiful” are extremely abstract signifiers that we never like to imagine ourselves as fully qualifying for. But if not us, who does? Hypothetically, what would the erasure of all these supposed “flaws” get us to? A fake Barbie?

Whether it’s insecurity or realism, I don’t think there’s any problem with celebrating the body and face you have. It’s not perfect in the literal sense, but it’s not supposed to be. If it works, for the most part—if you ever feel good about yourself—if anyone has ever paid you a compliment—you might as well have a perfect body.  The women who started and/or participate in The Nu Project, a photography blog of female nudes who embrace and celebrate their bodies as they are, seem to know this. (Warning: NSFW.) What I love about this project—besides for these women’s bravery in bearing all despite deviations from supposed “perfection”—is the sheer diversity of their bodies, the oft-needed reminder that there’s more ways to be and to look and to appear than the narrow parameters of beauty presented to us in the media.

Maybe all of us are perfect. Or maybe none of us are perfect. All I know is, it's a waste of time to feel shame---whether that's shame at feeling unattractive, or shame at feeling attractive and expressing that confidence aloud.

But also, I think it’s important to remember: we have bodies but we are not bodies. We are more. Accept the physical reality, then concern yourself with more important things, like being an awesome person. Right?

The end.

The homes that inspire nostalgia

We first met when I was on the cusp of nomadism and she was on her return voyage. I was about to embark on my first true field work in conflict management. I did not know it then, but that year would hold memories of Egypt, Uganda, Colombia, and Guatemala. Her journey stretched from Liberia to Indonesia and Boston to the Hague. We both swam in the pool of conflict management professionals, spoke with our hands, loved every baked good we met, and shared a passion for wander and wonder. In many ways, she inspired my own path with her courage, whimsy, curiosity, and attachment to service and to making impact. Meeting her kindled my faith in humanity---and sparked my consequent overuse of the term.

We are now sitting at her dining table in Washington, DC, five years later. She and her loved one built the bench atop which I am perched, and everything else in the house too. Even if she hadn't given me her house number, I would have picked it out among its companions. It is the most colorful house in the street. Everything in it is a colorful product of love too, carved with care out of wood, nailed together, splashed with the hues that matched their personalities. "We built the bed in which you are sleeping," she says smiling. People dream better in home-made beds. They ought to.

She is a different kind of adult than I am, I think to myself. A whole other league of adulthood, the kind that comes with one's own photographs hanging from her walls (in frames, I should clarify, since my own amateur photos hang frameless and in disorder). I scratch her cat's belly, as we talk about the conversations we used to have when we first met. We are still connected by those same threads, by conflict management and service, by a wanderlust for Iceland and the Bolivian salt flats alike. We joke about our loved ones' addiction to cycling, we revisit talks about neuroses that field work in some of the world's most active conflict zones could not mitigate. Peeking into her life makes me nostalgic for permanence and leaves me longing to caress wooden surfaces with an appreciation for the art that transforms them.

I used to live here too once, but the girl I was when I lived in Washington is different from the girl who returned to it now. It was the before era: before field work, before I knew that a lot of my life would unfold on the road or in conflict zones, before I grew attached to cameras and stories, before I had discovered much of what I now consider my life's work---in many senses, before I experienced what I now consider my life's many blessings. When I left Washington, I left with excitement, not out of frustration with its admittedly elevated sense of self-importance, but out of a craving to leap to the next phase of life and the novelty it had in store. And much as my memories of Washington were full of light and merriment, I did not consider it the kind of home that would inspire nostalgia.

Teetering in heels outside the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, I recognize bits of the self I was then: I was an obsessive list-maker, and I still am. I was the kind of girl who could write down thirteen to-do items, and cross them all. Part of me still enjoys ticking the boxes, literally and allegorically. In other senses, I have shed layers of skin since I left Washington. I have embraced uncertainty and developed a new comfort for it. I have appreciated vulnerability; in brave moments, I have deliberately put myself in vulnerable places with an understanding of their merits. I have marveled, marveled ferociously, demanded marveling. I have made more room. I have not carved furniture, but I have carved out space for loving, dreaming, and marveling.

And now that I am back, this time for a career trip with fellow graduate students interested in conflict management, I am marveling at a home that inspired more nostalgia than I thought it could. In between career panels and site visits, I duck into my old neighborhood bookstore. I used to stop there every single day on my walk home from work, even if nothing in the shelves had changed. The bookstore was a ritual I kept, a nostalgia-inspiring ritual that planted the seeds of marveling. Between a lunch and an informational interview, I pop into Teaism, wanting bubble tea. I giggle when I remember that they call it 'pearl tea' here. My memory had edged this lexicon out. Taryn and I sit side-by-side at Hello Cupcake, devouring cream cheese frosting. Dan and I have breakfast at Busboys and Poets. Halle and I share an almond croissant and cappuccinos at Dolcezza, which was not there when I last was. Some of the women by my side have been constant presences, on email and in teahouses, at a distance or side-by-side. Some of them are new to this memory, having sprung from shared field experiences, correspondences, school orientations, or serendipity.

This marriage of the worlds feels less foreign than I had anticipated. I practiced nostalgic eating, nostalgic bookstore browsing, nostalgic walking, nostalgic subway riding. Life was not Instagrammed when I had left Washington; all of it looked less romantic. It was not yet possible, as Cheri Lucas would say, to "enhance the mundane", "to disguise the mediocre." Surprise nostalgia is a privilege because it is as though a former home springs from the depth of your memories to claim its place in your life, to demand to be remembered lovingly. Or, at the very least, to be remembered---which, in my life, is by definition a loving act.

The Work/Life Balance

Last weekend, I found myself at a bar with a German.  He was in London visiting his girlfriend, and because I’m always curious about how long-distance relationships work, and because I’m nosy, I asked how often they got to see each other.  Their answer?  In the five years they’d been dating, they’d never gone more than two weeks, despite having a sea and a country between them.  “How is that possible?”  I asked.  When my boyfriend and I were long distance for six months, we only saw each other once, during a week-long Christmas break where we both used up all of our vacation days.  “How much time do you get off?” The German waved his hand about.  “Oh, you know,” he said, his accented words lilting charmingly, “it is up to us, really. If we take less than five weeks, they get a bit mad, but other than that, it is up to us.”

I can’t relay the conversation after this point, so stupefied was I by the facts he was casually conveying.  Five weeks was their minimum.  The company got mad if he didn’t take it.  By contrast, not one person in the last company I worked for used up their two weeks of vacation a year.  We weren’t the anomaly---apparently, more than half of people don’t use up their vacation days allotted in a given year.  And the US has some of the lowest amount of annual leave in the Western world.

I remember when, as an adolescent, I flipped through an issue of Time at my doctor’s office (I had sadly outgrown my prime Highlights years, and Time was the only other cover without a cross section of lungs or a colon on it).  It wasn’t even an article, just a small blurb, and when I read it, my largest career aspiration was to somehow gain employment at Jamba Juice.   Somehow, though, the sentiment struck a chord, and it became a go-to group conversation topic for years to come:  when given the choice of more time off or more money, the majority of Europeans chose more time.  The majority of Americans chose more money.

Because of this, and because of some media-driven idea of the overworked, bustling American eating a muffin on the treadmill while reading three papers and frantically replying to emails on their phone, I expected England to be a welcome change of pace from the life I’d become accustomed to living in New York and San Francisco before.  At all of my jobs, I was expected to be on for approximately 24 hours a day, available to answer emails and take calls even in the late evening hours.  Why not? I remember many a boss saying.  You should love what you do.  Your work should be your passion; your work should be your life.

I remember, when I was moving to England, telling people how much I was looking forward to a more even work-life balance.  “The Europeans just get it,” I said to anyone who cared and a lot of people who didn’t.  “They care about their jobs, but they realize there’s a world outside of it.”  And then I got to England.  Everyone was on their cell phones, and expected to be available 24 hours a day.  Everyone was rushing to and from their offices; everyone was stressed out. While they had, on average, more time off than those in the US (three weeks to the US’s two), few people took it.

“What’s the deal?” I asked one of my friends, a PR executive in her late 20s.  I told her about my expectations, about the European work-life balance I’d idealized and coveted.

“It’s still there,” she said, “in mainland Europe.  Here, we’re more like the US.  If you want to be successful on a world playing field, you need to work like it.   If people in the US are working till 8 or 9, we can’t be competitive with them by leaving at 5.”

Studies suggest, however, that this is more the perception than the reality.  A recent New York Times article suggests that relaxing more, recuperating, sleeping, and allowing your brain its much-needed resting time, improves overall output, even when less hours are actually invested.   By not having it all be output, output, output, you allow your brain to regenerate, to become stimulated. You catalyze new ideas and forge new neural pathways.  It’s healthier for you, healthier for your company, and, to be frank, more fun.

Yet, this is easier said than done.  While the writer of the Times article is working with companies that have a start-up mentality, companies like Google and Apple with beanbag chairs and on site basketball courts, it’s much harder to tell your boss that you should take a longer lunch break, and maybe a nap time around three.  It’s harder to say, I’m leaving at five because my work will be better, and it’s harder to shuffle out amid the glares from your coworkers.  The attitude is prevalent enough that it permeates the self-employed---despite making my own schedule (or perhaps more so because of it), I feel guilty whenever I’m not at my computer, actively writing.   I feel like I’m missing out on some opportunity to do better, and to be better.  Better than what?  The norm?  The ever increasing standard?  Maybe.  Or maybe just myself.

It’s sad then, when my PR maven friend tells me proudly that the UK is moving in the direction of the US.  It’s sad when my friends brag about spending the night at the office, or how they’re so busy they forgot to eat.  It’s sad when Zack and I are talking about his summer vacation and he’s listing off projects and internships, ways to get ahead.  “What about a vacation?” I ask.  “What about a little rest?”

“No one else will be resting,” he says.  “If you don’t move forward, you’re left behind.”

This, of course, isn’t something that can be changed on an individual level.  It’s a wide-scale shift in psyche; a probe into our values and what makes us happy on an individual and societal level.  But for my part, at least, I’m going to try and go outside when the sun is shining.  I’m going to take walks in the morning before I check my email, and I’m not going to give people my contact information with an assured, “You can reach me anytime.”  I’m going to try, at least, to do my work and live my life, and I invite you to join me.  If we all stay behind together, maybe, eventually, we’ll all end up ahead.

The endless in-between

Dear world, I have a proposition for you. Could we maybe just skip all of the Februaries between now and eternity? Growing up in the Great Lakes region, I learned from a very young age that February meant still stuffing yourself into your puffy winter gear long after that winter gear has lost its luster. In fact, by February in northwest Pennsylvania, everything has lost its luster. The snow is no longer magical—it’s just cold and very persistent.

My sister and I had complementary snowsuits—one pink and one purple. As we got a little bigger each year, February meant packing ourselves and our snowsuits like bloated sardines into the back of our tiny red hatchback for the ride to school. When I started taking music lessons in fifth grade, it meant trudging through the snow with a saxophone case as big as myself and packing that into the hatchback too. Since some of my dad’s work was seasonal, February also brought with it a sense of scarcity. It was the time when we started to worry about our winter stores running out.

By the time I got to high school, February was less about the weather and more about the waiting. It was a month of auditions and applications for summer programs, of anxiously checking the mailbox for very important envelopes. And although the applications were different and the stakes felt higher, February remained that way for the rest of my long education—a worrying and waiting month, in which the fates review whatever you have offered up and confer about your next steps.

This February has been my very first post-school February. Having moved south and finally graduated out of the academic calendar, I had rather hoped that each of the months would take on a quieter character, that September would not be so amped up with anticipation and February would not be so filled with dread.

Despite whatever balmy visions I may have had about Atlanta, it’s still colder here in February than it usually is, and grown-up February still feels like a month of reckoning. It is a time for doing your taxes and for taking account of everything that has changed, for better or worse, since this time last year.

By now, you know how much I love beginnings. And sometimes I can deal with endings too, because they usually lead to new beginnings. In-betweens, however, are impossible to wrap my head around, and after watching twenty-six Februaries come and go, I am certain that February is nothing but an endless in-between.

There must be some important reason for February to exist—a rare flower, perhaps, that only blooms this time of year—and if you can think of one, I hope you’ll let me know. Otherwise, I will be eagerly ticking off its last few days in hopeful anticipation of spring.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Sarah Brysk Cohen, owner of Blossom and Branch, is obsessed with flowers. She has been working in flower shops on the cutting edge of floral design, from New York to California, for 20 years and opened the Blossom and Branch studio in Brooklyn, New York in 2009. Her designs have been featured in various online and print publications, including Style Me Pretty, 100 Layer Cake, Brooklyn Bride, Brides Magazine, The Knot, New York Magazine Weddings and The New York Times, as well as in the San Diego Museum of Art. In addition to providing event florals and decor, Sarah teaches floral design classes and is a regular contributor on the internationally renowned blog, Design*Sponge. Before launching her design career, she obtained an MSW and worked as a licensed clinical social worker in two states. Sarah currently lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn with her husband, one-year-old daughter and English Bulldog. TO REMIND YOU OF SUMMER Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead I read this novel a couple years ago and it filled me with longing for my sun-bleached 1980s youth.  It also tapped into my fantasies of what moneyed people do on Long Island.  I love Colson Whitehead’s writing style – he is wry without being jaded and broaches the sensitive/heavy with a sense of humor.  He takes seriously the internal struggles of a teenage boy and makes them relevant for all of us. I also get the sense that this novel must have been semi-autobiographical and I love wondering about which elements come from his experience.  Plus, I met him on my bus once!  BIG UP, BROOKLYN.

BECAUSE I AM A MEMOIR FREAK Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn Whoa.  WHOA.  This memoir by Nick Flynn is about managing his homeless, alcoholic father and the intersection of their lives when the father comes to live at the shelter where Nick is employed as a social worker.  Having worked in and run homeless shelters, this book had me imagining what it would have felt like to try and maintain boundaries with a family member as client.  Despite living a tale of intense pain and loss, Flynn is able to tell his story with clarity, humor and a clear sense of empathy for his nearly impossible father.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART GIRLS How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley A series of totally hilarious and charming essays by Crosley and a very quick read for commuters or people like me who pass out after 2 minutes when you get into bed at night with your book.  Her snarky voice masks tender observations about human nature, which rings familiar to me.  I kind of wish Ms. Crosley would be my best friend, but until then, I will have to settle for a glimpse into her world through her writing.  And I will obviously continue to lightly stalk her on Facebook.

BECAUSE I LIKE SMART BOYS Live From the Campaign Trail by Michael A. Cohen OK, OK, so my husband wrote this book.  But it is actually totally fascinating and perfect for reflecting on the 2012 presidential election.  It is a history of the most important and influential campaign speeches of the 20^th Century and how they shaped modern America.  If you like history, politics, speeches and/or want to help us send our daughter to college, you should pick this up at any fine bookseller.

FOR A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA All God's Children by Fox Butterfield This is a stunning non-fiction work about violence and racism in the South told through the multi-generational struggle of the Bosket family.  This book was first released in 1995 but feels particularly relevant today, as we have experienced a recent spate of gun violence in this country and our conversation about how to address anti-social behavior has been brought to the fore.  You will be riveted by the first-person accounts of Willie Bosket, the centerpiece character of the book, and as the author digs back into the Bosket family history (all the way back their slave roots) you will see the legacy of violence continuing to produce dysfunction in modern times.  Please read this.

FOR THE EDWARDIAN CHILD INSIDE The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett When life gets too complicated for adult for my taste, I return to this children's classic book.  I have it downloaded on my iPad and just tap my fingers in anticipation of reading it aloud at night to my daughter.  This was the first "chapter book" I recall as a child that grabbed me and got me interested in reading.  It is, of course, a tragic, romantic and fanciful novel that combines many of my favorite themes - the mystery of a manor on the English countryside, the magic of gardens and the power of friendship to inspire healing.  The story is likely familiar to many of you -- two young cousins brought together by parental deaths are trapped in a vast and lonely English manor.  They figuratively and literally blossom together with the assistance of household staff and ultimately are bonded through the work of rehabilitating a long-dormant garden.  The characters are heartbreaking and timeless and it is worth a re-read, if, like me, the first time you read it was in 3rd grade.

Does Being an Adult Totally Suck?

Dear Sibyl, I finally feel like a real grown-up and I find it horribly disappointing. I can't imagine a better husband, my two-year-old daughter is awesome, and I love my work. Unfortunately, there's a big but. I was prepared to have a big, important career and I don't think that's possible as a mother of a small child (without being independently wealthy).

My parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be and my husband regularly says he's waiting for me to strike it big, so he can retire. Unfortunately, my career options are high in intellectual, social, and personal rewards, but not so much in financial rewards. My husband isn't going to be retiring on my salary anytime soon, which means his job needs to be the priority.

The part that really gets me is that I will never fully realize my potential career. If there are two working parents, one parent always has to be the one who will figure it out if the babysitter is sick. One parent has to make sure there is food in the fridge and favorite pajamas are washed in time for bed. One parent has to sign on as parent #1 (at least to provide the kind of support that I envision providing to my child). Maybe there is a system where both parents share all child-related responsibilities, but I'm not sure I can imagine it. After all, one of the major tenets of management in a professional context is maintaining individual responsibility: if everyone is responsible no one is.

Most big, important careers demand to be the priority. And I think the realization that made me a grown-up is that you don't get to have two priorities at once in life. I want my child, and eventually children, to be my first priority, but I also want to know what I could have done with my professional life had I been able to give it my all.

Sincerely, Two Paths, One Life

Dear Two Paths, One Life,

Are you sitting down?  Okay, because I’m about to deliver a series of blows that may hurt at first, but hopefully will settle in as the best kind of truth.

First of all, no wonder you are disappointed in adulthood, since you are completely missing the point.  The goal of life is not to be a big, important person who is responsible for everyone and amasses wealth for retirement.  I totally understand why you believe this, as this is our culture’s greatest falsehood, one we shout and whisper and slip into the food we serve.

But, Honey.  Oh, Honey, no.

The choice is not between being a mother and being a big shot.  It’s about being a person of substance, no matter what tasks you find yourself doing.

First of all, we need to address your sign off name.  There are three lives you are talking about here, and three paths, but you have submerged them all into one life---yours.  Of course there's no space to spread your wings!  You have both your husband and your child on your back, and you're stumbling around blindly.

A better metaphor for what should be going on is: One root, three vines.  Your husband and yourself formed the roots of your family tree when you bonded yourselves to one another.  Your lives climb like an ivy plant, branching off in some places, intertwining and holding one another up in others.  Your daughter's is an offshoot, that right now gets all of its nourishment from the roots of your marriage.  However, she'll branch off on her own more and more, and eventually she'll start her own vine, on some other wall.  The way things are now, both of their branches are choking yours, and no one can grow.

I think the problem is that you need to redefine success.  What is “making it” as an adult?  Is it a life of growth, or one you read about in the newspapers?  Because the people making headlines, especially ones with big, important careers, are always falling from grace, in big, important ways.  Just this month: Jesse Jackson Jr., Oscar Pistorius, THE POPE.

You don’t need a big, important career to be a happy adult, you need to be a big, important you.  Be the biggest star of your life.  Be the most important person in your child's life.

Do you want to make something happen?  Then follow your passion and do it!  But if you just want to feel important, then I don't think you will find that kind of validation in a high-paying, high stakes job.  That kind of validation only comes from within.

I want you to let this dream of being this powerful figure die so you can see what rises from the ashes.  I want what rises to be you.

In order to do this, you cannot use management tenets to run your family---your family should be be run on love, and love means everyone pitches in.  So, let go of some of the responsibility for being “Parent #1”, and let your husband plan back-up childcare for once.  And tell him to stop putting pressure on you to strike it big so he never has to work again!  What the hell?

So, perhaps you are not going to be on the cover of TIME magazine.  But, I doubt very seriously that that is because you are devoting your energy towards being a mother, instead.  I believe that you can still have what you want---have a feeling of being a successful adult who makes waves in the world, while still showing up for your children---but it is going to require a worldview shift.

Being an adult means we get to weave together the life we actually want, which, yes, is really difficult, but has the potential to create something totally unique and beautiful.

You are not missing out on fully realizing your potential career, if you are fully realizing your potential self.  You will need to give up the goals of prestige and leisure and take up the goal of love, but I promise you, it’s a better investment.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Lessons from South Africa...

Dearest Clara,

Sometimes when you travel you’ll feel that you have gone just about as far as you can go before circling back around again on the other side of the globe.  My recent trip to South Africa was exactly like that---16 hours on the way there, 18 hours on the way back.  Between the many hours and changes of time, and days that turn to nights and then back to days again, you end up wondering where you really are anyway.  And this time around it was such a blur---so many hours seem even more when you end up on the ground for only four days.

But four days is still plenty of time to make observations, and in South Africa, you can make a lot.  Of all the places I go to for work, South Africa is by far and away my favorite.  Maybe precisely because it is so far.  I'm hoping that one day soon I get to come back all of this way, perhaps even one day with you, to stay in this beautiful country for a bit longer, so that I can really get to know this part of the world that I otherwise have so little exposure to.  In the meantime, I've taken these things home with me:

• Always stop for a sundowner: the first time I really saw this was during my first trip to South Africa when I went on safari (all by myself no less!) No matter where we were driving, when the hour for sunset came, the South Africans were always insistent that we pull over the car, stop what we were doing and have a drink.  This trip, when I was mostly at the hotel and meetings, it was no different.  I was alone again, but seemingly everyday, people were having a moment of their own, usually over a glass. I don't know if it is meant to celebrate a day passed, or whether it is intended perhaps as a moment of gratefulness.  But I've come to love this small acknowledgement of another day that we have been lucky enough to have.
• Anyone can talk about the weather: When you're in a place that's different, and other potential topics plucked from the news or the social fabric might be perceived as unwelcome when broached by an outsider, you can never fail with the weather.  In Johannesburg, it rained every late afternoon when I was there, right around the same time.  A conversation about that day's rain, how it compared to the previous days, whether it would rain again tomorrow always seemed to fill any conversational void I had, no matter the person or their relation to me.  When in doubt, bring up the weather.
• Galleries somewhere else can inspire you: I didn't have much time to do anything other than my work on this trip, but I was lucky to have a few well-known galleries as I was out and about town in meetings.  The great thing about galleries is that they don't take long to see, and they're free. So while I didn't have the time to be a full-on tourist on my trip, I did make time to squeeze in twenty minutes here, half an hour there to pop into galleries.  You can learn a tremendous amount about art from a place, the topics its driven by, the way media of art differs just by taking a few minutes to look.  And chances are, you'll leave inspired to see things differently.
• Every city has a quiet corner: Any city that you don't know, Johannesburg included, can grow to be overwhelming when you don't know your way around.  It's true everywhere.  Sometimes cities give us the opportunity to blend in seamlessly, almost as if no one sees us.  But sometimes cities draw attention to us---in my mind, I can sometimes see a myriad of red arrows pointing at me, screaming to others that I don't belong and I don't know where I'm going.  But any city has a quiet spot---it might be a garden, it might be a coffee shop.  If ever you feel like you don't belong, just find your quiet spot, and recompose.  And every city always looks quiet from up above---if you can't find anywhere else, just go to the highest spot you can find.  You'll always find quiet there.
• Together is better: I had so many people say this to me on trips I've made to South Africa.  In a country that is still working through so many differences that history has left them, when people tell me that despite everything, "together is better", then it serves as a good reminder to me to make sure that I apply that principle in my own life.

All my love,

Mom

Ps  - And in case you might be wondering...no, that's not a real hippo.  It's a hippo I saw at a gallery!

Looking Forward: Truths.

When I was little, I thought hiccups could be captured in a tiny invisible box. I believed that if I thought hard enough---imagined myself sitting on the box, and nailing it shut, and applying a layer of glue, and locking it tight---they could be smothered, extinguished, conquered. I also believed that the food on my plate had feelings, and would be hurt if I didn’t eat it. And that somewhere in the world, dinosaurs still existed. And that one day, I might grow up to be a mermaid.

---

In last week's post, I mentioned the elementary school I attended in L.A., which included dance as part of its progressive curriculum. In addition to that, we spent a period of time each day discussing problems---things that made us angry or sad, or that troubled us. We would sit in a circle and offer thoughts or advice on whatever issues arose.

Inevitably, as children who attended private school and whose time on Earth hadn’t yet exceeded a decade, our problems tended to skew toward the lightweight. Rebecca pushed me on the blacktop. Joey threw dirt. Shoko put grass in my shoes. (Someone actually brought this one up one day; I still strongly dispute that it ever happened.)

Some incidents, in retrospect, were funny. “Joey showed me his middle finger today,” I remember one girl telling the class. “That means something bad.” She looked at the teacher. “Can I say what it means?”

“Yes, you can say what it means,” said the teacher.

“It means fuck,” said the little girl, her last word a whisper.

But the remark I remember most clearly made an impression for another reason. “I don’t want time to go by,” a little boy said. “Because I don’t want my mom and dad to get older and I don’t want them to die.”

I sat in my place in the circle on the floor, a strange sensation building in the pit of my stomach. It was a thought that had crossed my mind before, but one that was too terrifying to touch. Thinking about it made it a possibility.

The fact that someone else put words to it made it real.

---

I read a poem recently, a sad one. It was called Lies I’ve Told My 3 Year Old Recently, written by Raul Gutierrez. “Trees talk to each other at night,” reads the first line. “Tiny bears live in drain pipes,” reads another. “If you are very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.”

It continues for a few lines, then ends: “Books get lonely too. / Sadness can be eaten. / I will always be there.”

It made me think of things I believed as a child.

That people, if they were special enough, lived forever. That I could fly. That someday I’d see the entire world. That I’d always be happy.

None of these things are true. And realizing this over time has created a special sort of sadness. But, as a friend pointed out to me today, there are things we know now that we didn’t believe were true as children. For instance, that not being able to draw a tree that looks like a real tree, or a cat that looks like a real cat, or a face that looks like a real face, doesn’t make you a bad artist. That you can be terrible at geometry and chemistry and trigonometry---anything involving numbers, really---and still be smart. That being weird is cool.

That there are worse things in the world than sadness.

A sustainable practice

The most effortless project I’ve completed was the writing of my senior thesis, a collection of poetry and translation relating to the book of Genesis. I suppose it’s no coincidence that I was fixating, even then, on beginnings. I spent some time in the summer doing a bit of research, and when I returned to school in the Fall, I had no idea what the actual writing process would look like over the course of the next six or seven months. I’d spent many sleepless nights wringing academic papers from my brain over the previous three years, and I knew I needed a more sustainable process if I was to make it to the finish line, sanity intact and thesis in hand.

In my first meeting with my advisor, he gave me a piece of advice that, at the time, I found funny. In retrospect, I think of it as earth-shattering. He told me to write first thing in the morning.

I must have asked what he really meant by “first thing,” because I remember his insistence: DO NOT brush your teeth, DO NOT eat breakfast, DO NOT get dressed, DO NOT do anything before you sit down to write. OK, you can have coffee. But everything else will get in your way. Just write, first thing.

This advice must have been personal, because, at the time, I didn’t drink coffee. He must have been sharing what worked in his own practice. In any case, I took his advice very seriously, and I’ve thought about it a lot since.

I arranged my course schedule so that I had a couple of mornings free during the week, and I did my other work at night. I took his coffee exception to mean that I could choose a couple of my own non-negotiables, as long as I could do them on autopilot.

So for a few mornings a week, before my anxiety or inhibitions could get the best of me—in other words, before I had a chance to get in my own way—I did what I needed to do to feel vaguely human, and then I wrote. Later on, I was editing or rewriting, but the process was the same.

I didn’t start by searching for inspiration or thinking particularly hard about what I needed to do. I just showed up at my table for a couple of hours, did what I knew how to do, and then, for the rest of the day, took care of the business of living. It was like starting the day with an offering to the muses. You can sleep in, I was telling them. I got this.

It reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity, in which she emphasizes the importance of simply showing up and doing the work. I also think of the recent New York Times article on working less and accomplishing more when I consider the relatively limited number of hours I spent working in comparison to the amount of material I needed to produce. It was all about the quality of those hours, not the quantity.

Since I’m no longer a student, it’s been a process of trial and error trying to reestablish this sort of practice in my differently arranged life. The peculiar blessing/curse of the student is that she tends to have a great deal of control over her schedule. But even in my post-student life, I am comforted by a sense that the process of setting a goal and actually accomplishing it depends very little on talent or magic or circumstance and very much on creating rituals and habits that support simply showing up and doing the work over the long haul.

A Beautiful Life

Dear Sibyl, What do you think is the best and most gracious way to keep social life simple? I get a lot of requests to do things both for fun and on the professional level (i.e. sit on a committee or board) and I also want to have a good amount of unscheduled time, because I know that is what works for me, to keep me sane. But what is a good way to do this in a world that encourages frantic activity?

Sincerely, Lil’ Miss Popular

Dear Ms. Popular,

The most frequent answer to the question "How are you these days?" is "Busy!"  What if people answered this question a bit more accurately and said, "I have a lot of tasks to complete all the time, but inwardly I feel a little disconnected."  Because that is the true definition of a busy life.

Time is social capital.  First of all, I'd like to commend you for taking the time to consider your social commitments and seek to knit something together that supports you individually as well as helps you feel a part of a greater community.

Much of our lives are made up of the people we spend it with.  Some of that we don't have a whole lot of choice about: the co-worker that is hired after you and talks your ear off about their skydiving obsession, the fellow dog owner who tries to get you involved in puppy politics at the dog park, the neighbor with the backfiring van who will never move out.

So, when you have a rare hour of free time, you want to be sure you are investing it in something or someone who will add depth and continuity to your life, rather than feeling like you are flitting around from one commitment to the next, always playing catch-up with each person.

Personally, I often find myself falling head over heels for a person or an organization, and throwing myself into that friendship or activity with great fervor, only to find out a year down the line that they were not who I thought they were, or that I've outgrown them.  If I stopped doing this, however, my life would remain stagnant, and I would eventually feel isolated from my own lack of willingness to risk and put my whole self into my relationships and endeavors.

Carl Jung had the idea that we are drawn to people who have something that we need, and can help us realize those parts of ourselves.  Over time, we are meant to start doing those things on our own, and when we do, we may find that what we were meant to learn from that person, and what we had to share with them, has made the relationship redundant.

Does that mean you need to stop calling your best friend from elementary school, who have little in common with now but love seeing, for the tether she gives you to the past?  No, but I would suggest saving visits with her for special times: her birthday, when the band whose songbook the two of you have memorized comes to town, or a holiday you love spending with her.

This may free you (and your old friend) up to do some new things.  When you do, consider, "How is this going to help me grow as person?  What is it about this activity or friend that I am particularly drawn to?  Is that something I really want more of in my life?"

For instance, you may be excited about a certain couple because they have great parties that look cool on Instagram and give you blog fodder.  If that is really your only connection to them, I suggest giving them a very slim slice of your life, perhaps accepting only every third invitation.  However, if you have a friend who is exceptionally kind to your child, and who could teach you how to make terrariums, and remembers to ask after your sick cat, see if she can meet you for coffee tomorrow.

I have to say I am quite taken with your idea of preserving unscheduled time.  Perhaps you can block that out in your calendar, and write "Reserved for Spontaneity" in the square.  Then, when you are asked to fill that time with volunteer work or a baby shower, just say, "I cannot.  I have an engagement with my mind."  Then everyone will think you are weird and won't invite you places anymore anyway and you'll have lots of free time!

I am being a little silly there, but honestly, you have the right to curate your own life.  Consider your calendar like an art exhibit, and choose the pieces that inspire you the most and that you want to look at all the time to hang on the walls of your days.

Feel free to create something beautiful with your community and your time, even if this means turning down some invitations.  Choose beauty, however sparse that may be for you, over busy-ness.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Paper Hearts

I love my wonderfully magnificent husband.  He loves me right back.  Today, however, I will not be receiving anything heart-shaped from Kay Jewelers.  We will not be spending $250 on dinner at a restaurant where we typically eat for less than half that price.  Although it is entirely possible that I will gorge myself on chocolate treats (this is essentially known as “Thursday” in our house) and while it is fundamental to our marriage that we demonstrate love openly and frequently, it feels forced to do so specifically on Valentine’s Day. Aside from the fact that the Holiday originates in the veneration of a Saint (which is not really our thing), Valentine’s Day has never seemed terribly significant in our lives.  Perhaps it is this way for many married people, couples that have been together for a while or couples that came together a bit later in life.  I said, A BIT.  But before you decide that I am the exact opposite of fun or light-hearted, please know that I have certainly done the whole shebang for Valentine’s Day at various points in my illustrious romantic career.  I have coordinated and participated in elaborate spa getaways, decadent meals, surprise concerts - you name it – as well as the giving and receiving of delicately packaged items.  I do also recollect from my dating years the buzzy thrill of a person asking you out for Valentine’s Day - a sure sign (much like the first road trip together) that the relationship has bumped up to the next level.  And we haven’t even touched on my experience working in retail flower shops for days on end to prepare endless vases with floral expressions of love.  I have been there.  I have done that.

It should also be noted that I am in full support of the tradition of children crafting Valentines and learning to formally display affection for others.  I think it is ridiculously sweet to introduce any mode of creative correspondence, particularly for children growing up in the age of the iPad mini.  When parents and teachers of young children are sensitive about distributing classroom Valentines, it presents a genuine opportunity to learn about inclusivity.  I recall concrete lessons from my early elementary years about making each of my classmates feel exceptional.  For many little ones, the template for empathy comes from this kind of social experience. 

I think my primary issue with Valentine’s Day is that like with so many things in our culture, we have decided (somewhat arbitrarily) that this is the single day each year that we publicly acknowledge the love we have for the people around us.  I am much more concerned with keeping my relationship fresh and conveying appreciation during the daily slog.  It is not tremendously complicated to throw money at one of the many clichéd offerings on February 14^th.  The real labor of love, in my view, is to make eye contact and tender a bear hug during the morning greeting; to remember to ask your partner how the big meeting went today; to not finish all the ice cream yourself.  Enduring love means being the one who gets up before dawn with the baby because your cohort doesn’t “do mornings.”  It means not freaking the fuck out even though this has got to be the 794,375^th time you have picked a ball of socks up off the floor.  It means never, ever, ever checking out mentally or emotionally.

I haven’t picked out a card or made reservations anywhere.  I will be wearing regular, nondescript, cotton undergarments all day.  But I hope he will consider my abiding commitment to nurturing our life together a most treasured and heartfelt Valentine.

Lessons from a Valentine's Day...

Dearest Clara,

Happy Valentine’s Day! I know it seems a little corny to be wishing you a happy valentine’s day, but this is one of my favorite holidays. While some people see it as sappy and romantic, or commercial and forced, and granted, it can feel that way sometimes, I prefer to see it as a celebration of love among family and friends.  It’s an opportunity to recognize people who are important to us openly, and also an opportunity to recognize people sometimes a bit more secretly.  After all, who isn’t flattered by secret admirers?

My fondest Valentine’s memory though was a gift from my mother.  I was 12, and she woke me up early before her call shift at the hospital to give my gift: 3 pink Bic razors with a small can of shaving cream, all wrapped up in red tissue and in a small gift bag with hearts on it.  It couldn’t have cost more than a few dollars and I remember it like it was yesterday.  I had been begging to shave my legs, like all the other girls at school, for months, and I thought she would never say yes.  Turns out, my mom was more progressive (or perhaps more understanding of the need of junior high vanity) than I thought. . . It meant the world to me, and every year, I think of how excited I felt that she really took to heart what I had been wanting.

Here is the way I try to celebrate an extra touch of love on this day:

• Give valentines to everyone: When you’re young, hopefully in school they’ll get you in the habit of including everyone in Valentines.  Want to know why? Because it’s such a nice feeling when you’re included; and it’s such a sad feeling when you’re not.  Try to make room for as many people as you can in your Valentine’s day heart.
• Wear at least a little bit of red: Nothing over the top, but having a little touch of red, even if it’s somewhere not everyone can see, will put you in the holiday spirit and remind you to be extra loving towards those around you.
• Be weary of set Valentine’s menus at restaurants: In my experience, these never turn out for the best, neither in food, nor in your enjoyment of the evening.  If you go out, find a restaurant that treats this as a normal day, or prepare a celebration with a group in a non-traditional spot.
• Leave a surprise for someone you admire: Valentines are about relationships, but not everything has to be defined as a couple.  You can feel admiration for someone and not necessarily feel it in a romantic way—just don’t confuse the two for them.
• Be extra mindful of anyone you care about in “that way”: No matter how much people say they might not like or not care or not endorse Valentine’s day, I think everyone ends up holding out a little hope for it in the end.  So if you are with someone, make the effort to do something a bit more meaningful.  It doesn’t have to be serious, and it doesn’t have to be heart shaped boxes full of chocolates (unless they like it)—but do something that shows that you’re thinking about them and appreciate them in your life.

Wishing all my love to my darling Valentine,

Mom

Snow

I was going to post the animated trailer for Stranger Here today, but the big social media release date is 2/25, so I'm going to have to wait. . . So instead I’ll tell you a story.

I met a guy the other night who asked me, “Have you ever made a business plan? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, ‘I can achieve my goals?’” “I haven’t,” I said, “but I guess I should.”

He asked me, “What percentage of you is committed to achieving your goals? On a scale of one to a hundred, what percent committed are you?” I thought about it, I looked down, I looked up at him. “I’d say 95 to 100 percent,” I said. He laughed. “It’s not a test, you’re not on a game show.”

We had just watched my boss compete for a job, on a reality television show. He didn’t really want the job, but it was a chance to be on television, which is what he really wants to do. His actual job is owning a restaurant, which is where we were, drinking boxed wine. It was really snowing for the first time this year.

We went outside into the snow. We threw snowballs. Mine went in gentle arcs, smashing to powder on people’s coats. The business plan guy would hide behind a car until we were all ahead of him and then hit us from behind, hard.

The staff of the gelato place was outside and we had a snowball fight with them. After a while, a girl on their team asked a guy on our team whose team he was on, and he said, “I don’t even know anymore!” I yelled at him and threw a snowball at him. “You hit me in the dick! You hit me in the dick!” he yelled. But he wasn’t mad and I didn’t feel bad. I said, “That’s what you get for being a traitor!” He said, “Yeah, I deserved it.”

There were tequila shots inside. Aida and I told the boy I hit in the dick that he should shave his beard. He said, “Sometimes I shave off this part, so it’s just a goatee.” “Noooooo!” we said, “that’s worse!”

We went down the street to a bar and there was dancing in the basement. We danced with two 22 year old fetuses. One of them said to me, pointing to my hair, “Why the bob? I love it! You’re so retro!” I wanted to say, I’m not retro, I’m just ten years older than you, but I didn’t want to kill the moment.

Aida said to me, “Attack them with the hair!” and we shook our hair in their faces, her long black hair and my retro bob.

Sometimes everything comes together---how things look, what you’re doing, who you’re with, and who you are right then---and you can feel it all existing as one thing, separated out in time. Like a knot in a string.

The next day I thought about  my business plan. I don’t have one. But I have looked myself in the mirror and said, “Go for it.” I have had a flash, while carrying a stack of glasses across the restaurant where I work, and thought to myself, “This is my life! This is my life this is my life this is my life.” And thought, I want to get that tattooed somewhere so I see it every day, but in French or something, so I don’t get sick of it, so it can become just letters most of the time.

Trippin' Out Before the Trip Begins

There is an axiom, said by Confucius or Carnival Cruise Lines:  the couple that travels together, stays together.  In the five years I’ve been dating Zack, we’ve been to Europe and South America, the California coast and Los Angeles, Boston and the British countryside.   We have not, thus far, killed each other.  We’ve made it through the Spanish siesta time where every restaurant closes at exactly the time your stomach begins grumbling. We’ve survived a white knuckled bus ride that careened around Ecuadorian cliffs, dropping us several thousand feet in elevation in approximately 10 minutes.  When we’re fighting on a damp British day, we can look back at our pictures from a beach in Columbia, me in a bikini, him with a sun burnt nose and beer in hand and say, oh yeah.  I remember when everything felt wonderful. This, though, is not a column about traveling with a significant other.  It’s not chock full of tips about how to make it a rewarding experience for both of you (be flexible about scheduling your days!  Take time to explore by yourself!  Take probiotics; a wildly pooping partner tends to dampen the romance!).  Today, I’d like to talk about what happens before the trip even begins.

I am a planner.  After booking a flight, I’ll spend hours perusing TripAdvisor, Google images, Lonely Planet and Rick Steves (whom I may or may not have a small crush on).  I’ll Wikipedia the history of my destination; I won’t book a hostel until I’ve cross-referenced it on at least three sites.  This is in stark contrast to my regular life, where I spend much of my time searching for lost keys or money, or solving the case of the missing shoe.

There is a school of thought that suggests most of the happiness gained from a trip comes from the act of planning it, rather than being on the trip itself.  A study of 1,530 Dutch adults showed that planning a vacation boosted happiness for 8 weeks prior, while after the vacation, happiness levels quickly returned to normal.  The pleasure, it suggests, come from the anticipation of the vacation more than the vacation itself.  This is me, to a T:  when I’m on-line, scouring for deals and reviews and background, the picture of the place that I’m going is coming into tighter, brighter focus.  Instead of any beach, it’s a white sand one with turquoise water and an unusually good donut stand; instead of any Old Town, it’s the one where I can still see the bullet holes in the stones from World War II.  The more I know, the more I can picture myself there, and the more excited I get.

Zack, on the other hand, likes to wing it.  We’re planning a trip to Portugal and southern Spain right now, and when we were trying to figure out what cities we wanted to include, his eyes glazed over somewhere between Lisbon and Lagos.  “If we spend more time in Lagos,” I said, “we’ll have more warm beachiness, but then we’ll have to cut out some time in Cordoba.”

He sighed.  “What’s good about Cordoba again?”

“Here.”  I turned the computer to face him, and began clicking through images I’d opened.  “I’ll show you.”

“Liz,” he said.  “I don’t want to see all of this.”

“Why not?” I asked.  “I’m not planning this trip on my own.”

Here is what the study does not address:  when your partner is unhappy, you will likely be unhappy.

“I don’t like doing this,” Zack said.  “Going through pictures, getting an idea in my head of what it’s going to be like.  The real thing will never be the same, better or worse.   Flooding yourself with the place before you go removes the newness you get to experience when you first arrive.”

I paused; I’d never thought of this.  Still, for me it was simple math:  given the choice of happiness for a few months prior to a trip and slightly less happiness in the week or so I was on it, I would always choose the former.  For Zack, the authenticity of the experience mattered more than the fantasy leading up to it.  No amount of happiness derived from planning could make up for marring the moment itself.

Most things travel related merely serve to magnify that which exists in normal day-to-day life; this is why traveling is a test of a relationship.  I tend to be a person who thrives in fantasy. I write books and hang out with characters that are only real to me all day; I’ve always been someone who will spend much of the time in the present dreaming wistfully of another time.  Zack is more grounded in reality: he’s constantly assessing the world as it is so that he can invent products that fit in with it.  The constraints when he’s making said products are grounded in the real world; is there an existing part for this element, or does he need to create one?  When the pieces are in place and he flicks the power switch, he can’t write a successful outcome; it needs to actually happen.

We haven’t entirely solved our problem. I take the lead on planning now, just as I clean the bathroom or he handles the laundry, both tasks the other despises.  Still, there’s a part of me that misses sharing those dreamy moments with him, and I have no doubt there’s a part of him that craves the surprise reveal of the picture falling into place in an instant.

Do you and your partner sync up in your approach to planning, or fantasy in life in general?  If not, how do you deal with it?