Lessons on hitting a wall...

Dearest Clara,

Some days won’t be great days---I’d be misleading you if I said otherwise.  Specifically, some days you’ll feel a little stuck, like you’re a small wind-up toy that has come up against the wall.  And because there is nowhere to go, you just keep hitting the same spot over and over again, despite the fact that this doesn’t help you actually move forward.

The work days have been long recently---it’s a confluence of deadlines and projects and trips and communications.  It just happened that everything has been hitting at once, and sometimes it’s easy to feel that because you’re trying to give answers to everything, you don’t end up with good answers to anything.  So here are the things that have helped me most on these kinds of days:

• Prioritize what needs to get done: Make a list of the critical stuff, and then put the things that can wait on a separate list.  Or list them in order of due date.  Sometimes the first step in managing tasks so that we can actually move forward is to sort them out, so that you can move forward in small batches at a time.
• Get up, walk around: When we get caught up in “doing”, the hours often go by without us noticing.  And pretty soon we’re writing the same sentence over and over again, or looking at the same spot on the computer screen for minutes at a time.  If you’re not getting anywhere, get up, take a walk around the house or the building, or better yet, go outside . . . even if it’s just for five minutes.  That visual break often times makes the space you need for a new idea to make its way through.
• Look at something new and beautiful: A book of photographs, some flowers outside, an exhibit if you have time.  It doesn’t have to be related to what you’re working on, it just has to be completely different.  When we look at something new to us, it’s a bit like taking all the things that are already inside of our head and giving them a bit of a shake.  When everything lands again, the new order allows for new ways of thinking about the same problem.
• Go to bed early: You’ll have phases when this feeling can go on for days, and it makes us exhausted.  My natural reaction is to keep working, but if the work coming out isn’t that good, then I know it’s time for a change.  When you go through busy and sometimes numbing phases, be kind to yourself.  Make the space for rest---you’ll feel better in the long run, and your work will be better on the first iteration around.
• See you: When the daily grind becomes something I question, I try to make extra time to see you during the day.  There is something about your curiosity and laugh and willingness to play around with new things, that inspires me all over again.  And it reminds me what the daily grind is all for, as well as where it fits into the overall scheme of what’s important.  When you’re younger, I hope that you get the same feeling from your friends; when you’re a little older, from your love; and then when you’re even a little older from someone just like you.  That little person will be forever the light of your life, and a few extra minutes with them will always set you on the right path.

All my love,

Mom

Madam C.J. Walker: Self-Made Millionaire.

The first female self-made millionaire in U.S. history. Not too shabby a title. But I think Madam C.J. Walker—born Sarah Breedlove—gets extra points, like exponential extra points, for also having been born the daughter of slaves in the post-Civil War deep South. And still becoming a self-made millionaire. Now that takes some chutzpah.

Sarah was born in Louisiana in 1867, not long after the Emancipation Proclamation. Thus, she was the first of her siblings to be born free. Her parents had been slaves on the Madison Parish plantation. Imagine that generational divide—the brave new world that Sarah faced in the aftermath of the Civil War. She was not a slave; but what options could possibly be open to her, as a woman, let alone a businesswoman?

Well, early on, not a lot. She married at the age of 14 and had a daughter, A’Lelia (Lelia for short) at 17. Her husband died when Lelia was two years old, and Sarah moved, daughter in tow, to St. Louis.

Sarah later remarried. Her husband was one Charles Joseph Walker (see where she got the name!), a newspaper advertising salesman. It was about this time that Sarah, now Madam C.J. Walker, got her big American business idea. Taking into account her own experiences and difficulties with her hair—hair loss from an unhealthy scalp, “kinkiness” of her ethnic hair—she whipped up her own special shampoo and tonic, which she then decided to sell to the general populace. Or at least, other African-American women.

This is, I think, a really interesting point. First of all, there is an intense politics surrounding ethnic, and in particular African-American, hair. Consider the normative follicle beauty ideal in our society, which centers on lush, shiny, long, and, importantly, smooth hair. For many women, with a bit of brushing and shampooing, this is the natural state of their hair. For many others, this is something that can only be achieved through arduous styling, product usage, and manipulation. And yet it is still expected of them, somehow. How many African-American female celebrities wear their hair “au natural”? What kind of media buzz is created when they do?

This is a problem and, judging by Madam Walker’s success, not a new one. While the politics are questionable, Walker was able to smartly fill a need in an era when the African-American woman consumer was increasing her buying power. Capitalism! Free enterprise! In 1908, Walker and her husband moved to Pittsburgh and opened a college to train “hair culturists,” then resettled in Indianapolis where Madam C.J. Walker’s hair enterprise headquarters and factory were established.

Walker wasn’t just some money grubbing capitalist, even though that was clearly the vogue at the time (see: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford). She was also interested in politics and social causes, and regularly contributed money to the NAACP, the NACW (National Association of Colored Women), the YMCA, and other organizations. Among her pet projects: making lynching a federal crime (one of those things where you look back and are like: HOW WAS THIS AN ISSUE WITH TWO SIDES), the education of young black people (she sent six students every year to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute), saving Frederick Douglass’s house (!!).

Then, like any self-respecting upwardly mobile American, she built her own estate, and moved into it. In 1917, she relocated to Villa Lewaro, designed by the first licensed black architect in New York state, in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. According to her New York Times obituary, the estate was three stories and had over thirty rooms. It also had an $8,000 organ, which, after a well-stocked floor-to-ceiling mahogany library, would be the first thing I would get as a millionaire too.

Madam C.J. Walker died in 1919 at the age of 51, many more years of fabulous hair-empire-running and nouveau-riche-living before her unrealized. Her daughter Lelia took over the company upon her death. In 2010, New York City named a street (or technically, a “place”) in Manhattan after the two of them.

I love how Madam Walker resides at this fascinating intersection of race, class, and gender—capitalizing on raced and gendered products, born into the aftermath of America’s worst raced sin, giving large sums of her substantial fortune towards the advancement of its victims. I admire her gumption (synonym to chutzpah) at the same time that I recognize that her ability to navigate post-bellum America’s racist, unabashedly capitalist system was unique and exemplary. She made it. Most people didn’t.

Burmese Children

Before leaving to Myanmar, I had read so much online about it. Mostly, I was concerned about traveling safely in a country where traditions are so different and the political situation quite unstable. We all have heard a lot about Myanmar lately, and not all of it is good news. It seems that Myanmar is heading toward a more democratic government, but still in the outer provinces, those areas that are out of reach for tourists and seem so forgotten, ethnic fighting is happening. While gathering handful information, I learned that Myanmar is quite a bit more conservative than other countries in Southeast Asia, which means I packed t-shirts with leaves and long pants for those days. Knowing that the medical system and the pharmacies are still underdeveloped, I stocked up all the medicines I thought I may need. I learned that banks don’t exist, not to mention ATMs, and that dollars should not be folded or crumpled, or they will not get accepted anywhere. Last but not least, a friend of mine told me that during a trip over there a few years ago he tried to discuss about politics with his Myanmar guide, but there was no way the guy would even start to express his opinion about anything, and he mainly remained silent and looked embarrassed. Therefore, I decided it was wiser not to get involved in a political discussion in public. These tips being absorbed, I considered myself quite prepared to live a nice trip in a mostly mysterious country.

But nobody, no blog, no article, no friend, had prepared me to the real experience and the feelings I would feel once there.

Some journeys leave you the same way you were before, they give you memories of fun things, wild landscapes, or even new recipes. You take tons of pictures, and maybe sometimes you know you will never look at them again. They are stored in your computer, and that’s enough.

But other journeys change you, for they are really meaningful–they touch your heart so deeply you instantly feel will never fully recover. It’s a weird and precious feeling, and this was the first time it happened to me. I started to think: Was this place waiting for me? Will I be the same person again when I go home? How can I tell my family all the details? Can I leave Myanmar and go back to my country like this was a regular fun vacation? Is there anything I can do to give back to these people what they are giving me?

Before leaving, I had also gathered information about orphanages and schools, and learned that Burmese kids are not even eligible for adoption. Myanmar isn’t the only country in the world with such rules, but still my heart skipped a beat when I read this. The only thought that adoption is not a possibility made me feel powerless, impotent. In Myanmar there are some orphanages, and sometimes international foundations are taking care of collecting donations or organizing volunteering experiences (for instance http://www.burmachildrensfund.org.uk/). They support the future of these children in various parts of Burma, and provide kids with shelters and education.

One day Husband and I visited a school at Inle Lake. These students were from two to six years of age, and they had families to go back to at the end of the day. They looked happy, they screamed and laughed all together while the teachers were quietly watching over them. We were strangers at first, but it took them a few minutes to show us how they would push each other on the swing.

And that’s when I started to wonder–those poor children who don’t have parents or don’t know who they come from, can they be this happy? Coming from a Western country, where human and natural rules are quite different, I realized I shouldn’t judge the situation with my old eyes. Instead, I should keep my eyes open while I was there, learn as much as possible about these people and maybe change my way to consider things. It didn’t take long to learn the most important and shocking lesson–Burmese are so welcoming to foreigners, and they are even more welcoming to their own people. There might be severe ethnic fighting going on in some areas, but to me that’s an unfortunate, huge mistake. I saw something inside them, something special I had never seen in others before. I saw families, made of mothers, fathers and children who may be quite unaware of what’s outside their country, but who are still happy, they KNOW how to be happy and enjoy the simple things in life, some authentic way of living that we think we have but in fact we have lost. I had never, ever seen and felt this peace inside myself. So, putting aside my initial reaction towards the adoption issue, I wondered. Would adoption be the best choice? Growing in a natural and beautiful and uncontaminated environment, where relationship bounds are tight and pure, growing in your own country and having the chance to know it and make it better in the very near future… isn’t this the better option? After all, there are so many other ways to help, if we really want to.

I’m not sure what the answer to my questions might be, but I’m sure of one thing–Myanmar is a country that can change you deeply. I changed over there. Like a snake, I left my skin behind, and soon was ready to get warmer under new sun rays, free from the past, eager for a new future and willing to learn how to make a day out of a single smile.

These are more links of interest, to support children in Burma, or just gather information.

The Burma Orphanage Project: http://burmaorphanageproject.org.uk/about/

Myanmar Orphanage: http://www.myanmarorphanage.com/

Stichting Care for Children: http://www.careforchildren.nu/en/

"For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all."

Aung San Suu Kyi - Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1991)

New Growth

As flowers go, crocuses are excellent role models. Every spring they stretch their resilient little faces skyward and unfurl their tight little petals to whatever it is that will greet them. It doesn’t matter how much dirt and debris lies on top of them, how much snow or sleet or rain falls on them, they always seem to find a way to wriggle through winter’s thickest layers and emerge triumphant.

Recently, when I returned back to the city after a weekend away, I noticed a cluster of the royal purple variety peeping through the tops of leaves and trash that had accumulated outside of our building over the winter. I nearly swooned. But I also got to work. Seeing that one tiny sign of life made me want to see more. I went inside to get the garden gloves that I usually reserve for my own window box gardening and I got to clearing.

I yanked up overgrown ivy, I did my best to disguise hideous garden sculptures, I filled an entire trash can with leaves and sticks and plastic bags and yes, even dog poop. The work felt good in the get-your-muscles-moving-and-the-wind-in-your-hair kind of way. But after spending just an hour outside, I realized that the real work had little to do with flowers and everything to do with people.

There was Luca, age 3.5. He  lives on the 22nd floor of a nearby building and his favorite thing to grow are flowers. He told me. Then there was Jordan, mother of two and a woman who I have passed roughly 300 times without ever introducing myself. She and her sister cleaned up the gardens in every apartment they ever rented, she said. And finally there was the young man who lives in our building, whose name I didn’t catch, but who has a soft spot for tacky garden sculptures (alas) and a visiting father who wanted to make sure that I have a green thumb.

In the single hour that I spent outside clearing brush and debris from the front of our building, I had more actual conversations with my neighbors than I have ever had. It’s not surprising, really, but it is encouraging. New growth, two ways.

Boston: Stories of compassion

Earlier today, explosions rocked the Boston Marathon, resulting in deaths, injuries, and widespread fear through the city I now call home. I have never quite known what to say in the wake of a tragedy and my inclination has always been to say very little and, instead, to watch, to hope, to hold humans in my heart.

As phone calls and text messages started pouring in, the irony was not lost on us or on most of our friends that we have had to do this before: The shock after a bombing, the cycle of calling and texting, the confusion, the indignation at injustice. The brain has a way of linking these experiences together and every image of the blasts in Boston calls back the sounds of blasts in Uganda and Gaza and Bogotá and Jerusalem.

We are safe, and blessed with love---and, as we heal, we count those blessings.

Boston is a home so full of compassion that the Red Cross blood banks are full, only hours after the events transpired.

Boston is a home so full of compassion that some marathoners ran straight from the finish line to the hospital to donate blood.

Boston is a home so full of compassion that Bostonians are opening their homes to stranded runners, spectators, and their families who may need a place to stay for the night.

Boston is a home so full of compassion that in my graduate school community, within minutes of the explosions, students created a spreadsheet to track down runners and spectators, offered one another rides to get out of the blast zone, tracked down those who were momentarily unaccounted for, and held one another in kindness as we struggled to process what happened. Boston is a home full of humbling compassion.

The Atlantic is compiling these stories of kindness here today, and it is to these that we turn for hope in the wake of tragedy.

So now we wait. We share meals and feed one another. We watch TV together because companionship alleviates pain, and we turn it off when solace and quiet serve us better. We resist the inclination to judge or to jump to conclusions or to spread rumors. We photograph the beautiful sunset, or walk our dogs, or fold the laundry, in search of beauty or normalcy in the face of injustice. We shower our first responders with gratitude, and we are thankful for those who keep us safe and informed under these circumstances. We hold the wounded and those whom we have lost in our hearts, and open our hugs to those still in shock or grieving. We mourn together, as a community. We look for the light in our collective home. We ask questions, with patience through the slowness of the answers. We extend compassion. We love. We keep our hearts soft, stirring for hope and for the stories that will continue to fuel our faith in humanity.

This essay was originally posted on Stories of Conflict and Love.

A Post about a Book about the Internet

When I picked up a copy of The Digital Divide at a conference last fall, I didn’t realize the essays had been published elsewhere, in print and online. As I dipped into it on the plane ride home, I only wondered for a moment if I should have just waited to search for each of the essays and read them in their original contexts. By just a few pages in, I was already thankful that the collection had been curated for me in the particular form of a printed book. It seemed that simply based on my purchase and my subsequent satisfaction with it, perhaps I had already come down on one side of the debate at its core. The articles date from the nineties to 2011, when the book was published, and rather than digging deeply into current debates about the internet and its relationship to culture and social life, the collection offers a historical perspective on the way these debates have changed over the past decade or two. As we wonder about whether social media is helping or hindering our social lives, it helps to be reminded of a time---not particularly long ago, in fact---before it even existed. I have to admit that I find it difficult to remember what was different, or the same, about life before Facebook was invented in 2004.

My favorite essay in the collection is one of the last, “The End of Solitude,” by William Deresiewicz. It is wonderfully poetic in its exploration of the history and evolution of solitude and its role in art, literature, and religion. Deresiewicz begins his argument for the power of solitude this way: “In particular, the act of being alone has been understood as an essential dimension of religious experience, albeit one restricted to a self-selected few. Through the solitude of rare spirits, the collective renews its relationship with divinity.”

What, you might ask, does all this business about solitude have to do with the internet? Deresiewicz argues that in some ways, our contemporary conception of loneliness—the negative side of the solitude coin—was invented with the help of the internet. He compares this phenomenon to the relationship between boredom and television. Television offers the potential to snuff out boredom and silence. If you like, you can always have a bit of background entertainment filling your living room, restaurant, or airport. But in turn, the potential for constant entertainment breeds a fear of quiet. In the same way, Deresiewicz argues, the internet provides the potential for constant connectivity, and its dark underbelly is a fear of being alone.

Certainly the feeling of loneliness has a much longer history than the internet, and the connectivity of the internet has been, in Deresiewicz’s words, “an incalculable blessing” in helping us to find and communicate with others who share our dreams, interests, and experiences. The relationship between loneliness and the internet is not a question of the chicken or the egg, but rather a shift in balance. As Deresiewicz explains, “not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone.”

As I consume article after article urging us to get away from our screens in order to be more creative, energetic, and productive, I wonder if the underlying charge is to simply create space for solitude, an uncomfortable but valuable state which is easier now than ever to avoid.

I suppose this is part of what drew me to the book as a printed book, rather than as an interactive series of links and comments. While I love letting my curiosity carry me from one link to another, I thought it might be interesting—and it was—to read about the internet, for once, alone.

Two Weeks

Two weeks ago, tucked under my covers and cursing the still-too-cold-April, attempting to sleep after a tough discussion, I felt crushed and thought “I’ve had enough of feeling like this” as I stared at the ceiling. I turned over and managed to count backwards until I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, the “I’ve had enough" feeling persisted, along with a desire for change. Before I climbed out of bed, I committed myself to making space for more positive thinking and dreaming. Moment by moment, day by day, I decided to commit myself to beginning a process. A process that I had put off (unintentionally), with a variety excuses such as well “this is a time of transition (i.e. in two months you don’t know where you will be living, what you will be doing, or how you will be getting by), of course it is hard” or “your life isn’t exactly as you had imagined it, of course you feel this way.” But two weeks ago, I decided enough with the platitudes, I’m striving for great, not just getting by, and I’m not waiting to start. Two weeks isn’t enough time to show consistency or deep change worthy of earnest reflection.

However, making a public commitment to a process of loving yourself fiercely and re-writing an openly positive narrative takes brave words, quiet trusting moments, and the accountability of self and friends.

Quieting the voices

Long discussions with friends [and, just about everyone I meet] have left me certain that I am not the only one who battles internal voices. Much of the time, these voices urge me forward, empowering me, nudging me to take a risk---but every once in a while, they catch me off-guard and fill my heart and mind with self-doubt. On the suggestion of a friend, who recommended a new practice, I am spending a few minutes a day in front of the mirror. The goal is to repeat the phrase “I love you” to myself, until the self-judgment fades and my softer, self-caring side emerges. While it appears obvious, being accountable for loving yourself, actively, shifts your frame of reference to a more whole, more loving version of yourself. As Brene Brown says, this is where the “whole hearted” begin from.

The pesky surprise voices of doubt are now meeting some resistance.

Training and un-training muscles

Some of the cycles of thinking I fall into [or rather, allow myself to fall into], I have developed and practiced over years. Their less than blissful cycles interrupt my day. As one of my favorite blogs wisely notes, “years and years of training were required in order for your mind to reach its current level. This is your work. And just as it was trained, it can also be untrained.” As I try to re-formulate my brain around positive thinking, I feel resistance from old patterns of thinking. I feel that I am attempting to change the channel before an old show, one of self-doubt that I have seen before, plays a re-run in my mind. What does it take to break these and reconfigure the cycle? What if instead of thinking through the same pattern of thoughts, ending at the point I began, I vary the questions: What is the worst thing that can happen? I try to get underneath what is really going on.

However, some of the thought patterns are old habits, in some way comforting. They need to be thrown out the window into the beautiful spring air. Each time I break a cycle, I celebrate being one step closer to the person I want to be. Each minor win is a victory.

New Dreams

How do we dream new dreams? How do we know what to aim for? And, then how do we build the path there? Now, facing the end of my formal education, I am realizing that I don’t have set dreams for the next step or even the steps beyond that. Where I sit today was, in essence, the end of the “dream plan.” I don’t take it for granted that I have accomplished some of the goals I set for myself. Yet, this wonderful life must be bigger than that, there must be more I want. Of course, there are hazy visions of things I’d like to do and the person I want to become, but I want to continue to strive for understanding and visualizing that person and that place.

I want to put a stake in the ground and fight. One step at a time and the active decision to be happy, made at every second of every day.

Nobody Puts Baby Under a Cover

Dear Sibyl,

I'm the proud mama of a 2-month-old little boy, and I'm happy to be exclusively breastfeeding him.  I'm often in public places when it's time for him to eat, and I'm generally happy to feed him (without a cover, as I find them annoying and difficult) wherever we find ourselves---be it a park, cafe, or friend's home.

However, my husband feels uncomfortable that I do this, and it has sparked tension between us.  I don't much care what random observers think about my practice, but I do respect my husband's opinion.  On the other hand, I feel as though he's being prudish and controlling...

Signed,

Baby Mama

Dear Baby Mama,

Honey, you gotta let those girls fly.  Take the puppies out of the basket.  Give your boobs some breathing room.  Breastfeeding is hard enough---what with the pumping and the cracking and the soreness and the wardrobe restrictions---you can’t also be worrying about what your husband thinks about Rando Calrissian seeing a nip slip while the baby is getting his lunch.

I can see your husband’s perspective---up until 2 months ago, your breasts were highly sexualized body parts, and, even if you are currently not thinking of them that way, what with the bleeding and leaking and all, he might still be.  He is certainly worrying that other men are.

But just to put it in perspective for him, here is an incomplete list of all the men I breastfed in front of, in my 15 month stint: my priest, my father-in-law, all my male friends, my dance instructor, the guy who cleans the laundromat, everyone at every park and restaurant in my neighborhood, the dude sitting horrifyingly close to me on an airplane, my boss, and my city’s entire baseball team.  They could all sing to me that snarky little song Seth McFarlane thought was so clever at the Oscars, “We saw your boobs!”  And how many shits would I give?  Zero.  I would give none of the shits.

I found breastfeeding to be alternately the greatest thing ever and shockingly isolating and difficult.  So, I began brazenly breastfeeding everywhere I went---I mean, how many dicks have you seen in public, when men whip them out to pee in a corner/on a bush/by the side of the road?  WAY too many.  Why should they be allowed to relieve themselves wherever, whenever, when I was just trying to give my child some nurturance and get her to stop wailing, for everyone’s sake?

I have no idea how my husband felt about this.  It was actually not something he was allowed comment on.  It was my body, and I was working so hard to give our baby food from it that my husband would never dream of saying, “Honey?  Could you cover up a little?  Homeboy behind the counter is giving you a stare.”

But that is my relationship, and this is yours.  It is fine for your husband to state his opinion, and sweet of you to care.  However, what I’m not game for is him inflicting any kind of shame on you about your choice.  Body shame is serious problem, and the oversexualization of women’s lady bits has led to a society rampant with the kind of prudish, controlling behavior you suspect your husband of on the one hand, and a violent underbelly of objectification and rape culture on the other.

Your body is your own.  Your breasts are only yours, and what you choose to do with them, especially when you are quite innocently feeding your baby, is your business.  I hate to say it, but welcome to the contradictory experience of being a mother, where you’re damned if you stay at home for being too smothering, and damned if you work full-time for being abandoning.  You’re damned if you breastfeed in public without covering up, but you’re damned if you pull out a bottle of formula as well.

Like Bob Dylan said, everybody must get stoned.  You might as well embrace it now, and get used to mothering this child however you want, making peace with yourself despite those (in this case, including your husband) who may not always understand or agree.

In Mammorial Solidarity,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Easter Eggs

This year, Brian had an idea to make Easter baskets for our parents, which was really fun and made me feel all right about Easter, which has never been my favorite holiday. I am working on a story about the two of us shopping for Easter basket materials. I am going to make the illustrations out of cut paper, but I also needed to figure out how to do the text. I decided to try hand writing it.

I didn’t like the way that the black ink looked because the contrast between its light and dark parts seemed too harsh. I got some grey ink and also a new brush at the art supply store. Funny visit to the art supply store. Everyone in the paper department was really grumpy, and downstairs, the woman checking me out told me how moths ate her paintbrushes so she has to keep them in the fridge (she was really sweet and sassy and seemed so old school NYC like an Annie Potts character in an 80s movie) and then I am pretty sure one of the employees pooped on the floor. Pretty sure.

Clean desk and new art supplies! The brush is wrapped in brown paper. She was so careful with it.

Also got some new paper for an animation I am going to make, a video for a friend’s band. I never let myself buy fancy paper because it feels like cheating but I decided this time it’s ok, this video can have a little more of a collage feel to it. The two white papers are going to be snow.

The writing isn’t perfect but I think it will work, and I like the grey ink. When I showed Brian this and said, “What do you think?” he said, “It looks like Apu from the Simpsons.”

 Tracing eggs.

Egg outline. (I don’t know where that weird owl came from.)

Eggs in progress.

A pretty nice egg.

 I really like this egg.

The first egg I made. I rejected it for being insufficiently egg-like.

I tried to make a replacement but I didn’t like that one either.

So I decided the original egg would do. (Practicing egg-ceptance.)

More to come in the future!

TV Dinners, Game Developers, and Female Objectification

There’s that moment, and I’ve gotten pretty used to it, when you’re watching TV or you’re at a party or a club or you’re listening to a comedian, and you have a sudden realization: Oh. They’re not talking to me anymore. Sometimes it’s a little thing, and sometimes it’s not, but we’ve all been there—knowing, with certainty, that the tone has shifted from one of universal nature, to one that addresses solely the heterosexual male contingent of the audience. This is evidenced by the way that women are being represented, employed, talked about.

My “they’re-not-talking-to-me” senses were triggered by the most inane, the most ridiculous thing the other night—a Hot Pocket commercial—but maybe because of too much stress, maybe because of not enough sleep, I subsequently flew into a rage.

The gist: A really, really plain-looking guy and a hottified girl (makeup, voluminous hair, perpetual narrow-eyed come-hither expression, tight shirt, slinky walk) enter a room and approach a second plain-looking guy, who is holding a somewhat phallic-looking Hot Pocket, which the girl proceeds to put in her mouth in a fairly suggestive way as the guys look on, wide-eyed.

Then I flew into a rage.

That’s a slight exaggeration.

I just suddenly felt, I don’t know—fed up? “They’re just putting shit into the world,” I raved at my poor boyfriend. “Shit!” Besides for giving vent to my need to curse, I guess what I meant by that was: something extraneous, with a wholesale negative impact. This Hot Pocket commercial wasn’t doing anything that Carl’s Jr. (Hardee’s for you East Coasters) campaigns hadn’t done before, and better/worse/horrifyingly worse. Paris Hilton writhing around in a bikini, washing a car and stuffing a burger in her face. Miss Turkey strutting down a pier holding (what else) a turkey burger, with the camera squarely focused on her ass.

I’ve hated Carl’s Jr. commercials for a long time.

But those are really only the most egregious, honest, overt, self-conscious examples. Women’s bodies are regularly put on display as if that will please, titillate, enhance the experience of the average viewer. No matter how random the product. No matter how wide the audience.

Recently, at a game developers’ conference in San Francisco, outrage was had over the presence of scantily clad women dancers. Female attendees felt uncomfortable, and an IGDA chairwoman resigned in protest. This was an especially sore point because the game developers field has long been dominated by men—and instead of making efforts to include women and make them feel like respected and valued colleagues, a major professional conference instead “included” women as entertainment and decoration. This isn’t for you. We’re not talking to you.

It’s not that I have a problem with women’s bodies, or showing skin, or what have you. And it’s not that women can’t be entertained by scantily clad women. It’s more that such women, in the public sphere, in media, tend to represent a wider attitude about women, an accessibility, an empty vessel-hood, that is conceived of, produced, and enjoyed by the heterosexual male gaze. It’s this pervasive sense that, unlike men, women can be expected to provide sex, entertainment, decoration, inspiration, that they are bodies and not subjects, not actors, not people. These women are not participators in the conversation, but rather objects and symbols that sit voiceless on the sidelines while men bandy them about. And those women who do participate have to accept that they are exceptions.

This type of problem ties into wider issues of gender inequality and attitudes towards women, and, as ridiculous or harmless as it may seem, I believe it has the potential to at least indirectly promote or condone some really, you know, evil, effed up shit---misogyny, discrimination, rape culture. It’s an all-consuming, insidious problem that I don’t expect to change overnight, but that, I hope, will slowly fade as women continue to expand their influence in related fields. In the meantime, I'm dealing in two ways: I wrote this blog post, and I’m not buying any Hot Pockets.

A Family

By Erin R. Van Genderen Photo by Judy Pak

My husband and I will have been married for nine months this month. That’s enough time to grow a baby, to start a family in a real, grown-up sense of the phrase. And I get that question a lot as a stay-at-home military wife.

“When are you going to start a family?”

A few days out of the week I help out an elderly couple in town who have experienced several medical mishaps in the last few years. Mr. and Mrs. Bond are still mentally sharp and living in their own home despite their declining health, and I’m only there to make sure a meal is cooked, things are tidy, pills get taken and blood pressure gets measured, and everyone gets into bed without issue.

They are frail, with Bible-page skin and fingers like bird bones. They have matching armchairs next to one another in their sitting room. They have family photographs on every wall and covering the refrigerator.

And even though Lillie’s voice is more of a whisper now and often too faint to register through Kendall’s hearing aids, she still calls him “honey.” They clasp hands at mealtime and offer up a prayer asking for blessing over the food and claiming thankfulness for all the many gifts they have received.

As tempting as it is to consider them fragile and naïve, childlike in their near-helpless old age, I can remember that they were once like me when I see these things. When Kendall lets go of his walker long enough to lift Lillie’s legs and swivel her onto her side of the bed, then tucks her in and kisses her cheek, I see a love that comes from more than fifty-seven years of life together. When he gets down on his knees to pull her chair, with her in it, closer to the dinner table, then struggles back to his seat with both hands on the tabletop, I see years of sacrifice, for better or worse.

Their marriage, more than half a century old, retains the respect and care of a relationship that many my age have still yet to taste.

So when I am asked when my husband and I will get around to “starting a family,” I get a little ruffled. Even though it’s just the two of us, in the end it will be just the two of us — and for now, just the two of us is all of the family that we need.

New trip, new you? Travel and the opportunity for change

A paradox:  the thing that frightens me most in the world is flying.  The rumbling engines, buried somewhere in the gut of a monster whose insides I cannot see; the finality of the cabin door closing; the complete and total trust in two strangers in the pilot’s seat, not to mention the myriad more on the ground, making sure two planes don’t meet nose to nose at 500 miles per hour, making sure the runway is clear but not slick, the wings free of ice and the fuel tank full. The deceptively fluffy clouds and their turbulence filled interiors.  The 36,000 feet that separate me from the ground. And yet, my favorite place in the world is an airport.  Any airport will do, although some, of course, are better than others.  London’s Heathrow is a marvel.  San Francisco’s new terminal has free Google Chromebooks, an organic juice bar and a yoga room.  But it is not these things that make me love airports.  I’ve never known, in fact, what it is, knowing merely the likes that, while exemplary, fall short of explaining the love:  the antiseptic smell; the ten issues of Cosmo, all trumpeting sex tips in different languages; the permission to eat crappy food (because everyone, in an airport, gives themselves that permission).  I didn’t know where the love came from, though, until I was on a bus from Lisbon, in Portugal, to Seville, in Spain’s Andalucia.

“Zack,” I said to my boyfriend, who was nodding off in the seat next to me.  I poked him.  “Zack, I had an epiphany.”

He opened one eye.  “Yeah?”

I’d been thinking of the time we’d just spent in Lisbon, and the last time I’d been on a bus several days earlier, to Lisbon from Porto in the north.  As much as I enjoyed walking around the glowing white streets of Lisbon, sampling the tart cherry liquor and chocolate salami, the part where my head tingled, where my palms sweat slightly and I tapped my toes---that was earlier.  That was on the bus, and it was happening again.  To Zack, I said, “I don’t like traveling because of the places I go.  I like traveling because of the opportunity for change, because of the hope of transferring locales, of the possibility the unknown offers.   I like the places themselves, of course, but it’s more about the change---the possibility for it, and then, hopefully, the reality of it---that’s the part I love.”

I settled back into my seat, satisfied.  Airports, then, were the ultimate place of opportunity: hundreds and thousands of possibilities for changes, branching upward and outward into the endless sky from the terminal filled hub, in which I sat, and waited, and savored.

Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin (if there can be such a thing), writes that, “To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.”

While many people think of vacations as fulfilling the first element---what feels better, really, than laying on a beach with a cocktail in hand, or sampling gelatos on a stroll through Rome---I’ve always, without realizing, thought of it as accomplishing the last element: the atmosphere of growth.  Each place, with its different things to do, see, eat, smell, taste, hate, and love, offers the possibility of making me different, ever so slightly.  Each place offers me the opportunity to change---hopefully, to grow---as a person.

“Do you think that’s universally true?” Zack asked, having now awoken enough to engage.  “Does a trip to remote Africa offer the same potential for change as a cruise in the Bahamas?”

I pondered the question.  Do, as he asked, the trips of the “feeling good” variety provide the same atmosphere of growth that I so desired?  Did travel inherently offer opportunity for change, or is that potential limited to a certain kind of trip?

My best trips, the ones that I savor in memory for months and years after, are the ones that have been the hardest.  There were the two months I spent in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, where I burst into tears at least three chaotic, crowded border crossings, felt dirty constantly, and was 100% positive I was going to die at least five times (you may not want to trust my odds predictions).  I felt more changed at the end of it, but also simply more satisfied.  When I look back on it, the colors are brighter, the smells richer, the interactions more readily accessible in the banks of my mind (there is, of course, something else to be said for knowing, as with a place like Syria, that you went at a specific point in history; that it will be fundamentally changed should ever you return).

Does this mean that the trips that I primarily simply indulge in simple pleasures are less worthwhile?  I don’t think so.  There is something to be said for the change inspired by allowing yourself to just be, of acknowledging the value of pleasure, of saying, I have no where to go other than here, no one to indulge other than myself.  This kind of environment offers its own opportunity for change, for reflection, for growth---although sometimes, I think there is merit in not seeking growth at all.

And sometimes, it’s better to be in an airport: the great joy in being safe on the ground, and knowing that, soon enough, you’ll take flight.

All Hours Are Not Created Equal

I have been struck lately by the way in which different hours in the day and different periods in life seem to have very different weight. The morning hours speed by before I can even catch hold of them, while afternoon hours march on ever so slowly. Unfortunately, those slippery morning hours are my most productive, so I am forever trying to figure out how to tackle the bulk of my to-do list before they slip away. Monday time feels so very different from Friday time, and then, weekend time is another thing altogether.

And when I think of time on the scale of a lifetime, I am amazed at how the briefest moments can rise above the rest in technicolor memory, while all the rest seem fuzzy in black and white. I must have spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours researching and writing papers as a student, but I can’t pin down any one of those hours in particular. Each was a tiny drop in the bucket toward the slow and steady process of learning to make an argument, tell a story, or craft a sentence. Those hours were only significant because they were many.

Instead, I remember a handful of conversations on couches or in coffee shops and the brief exchanges of empathy that made all the rest of it easier. I remember the food and drinks shared as a currency of love and friendship and understanding. I remember a certain slant of sunlight hitting the table, finally, one spring afternoon.

In comparison to many months and years spent living in one place, it feels like just a few weeks spent traveling changed everything.

There must have been hundreds of walks along the same path to and from campus, but on one in particular, a classmate caught up with me and not so very long after, it seems, became my husband. We’ve been married nearly six months now, and sometimes it seems like only a moment has passed. On the other hand, I wonder whether perhaps we’ve always been together.

The hardest thing about time, I think, is knowing in the moment which of those moments count and which will fade quickly, which to hang onto tightly and which to let go of gracefully.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Eloise Blondiau writes about art, life and culture at her blog Walloony, (the name of which refers to her Belgian heritage). Born and bred in London she is currently studying Theology at the University of Exeter. 

I have a fascination with people that reading both nourishes and challenges. That’s actually why I study theology – what people choose to believe and how they live is revealing not only of individuals but of human nature. The books on this list have taught me about people and that’s why I love them so much. 

What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through The Fire  by Charles Bukowski Anyone considering reading one of Bukowski’s novels (e.g. Post Office) should first read his poetry; this book is easy to dip in and out of and gives a great feel for what he’s about. Bukowski baffled me when I first read him, aged about fourteen. As a sheltered girl who went to Catholic school his raw and dirty reality attracted me because it was a world away from my own. His voice is confrontational and not often likeable, but I think its honesty is beautiful. ‘The Genius of the Crowd’ is my favourite poem in What Matters is How Well You Walk Through The Fire. In this poem, Bukowski’s frightening depiction of human nature really challenged me. Although I’m not entirely convinced by his pessimism, there’s truth in the claim that the more generously you give to a person, the more power you give that same person to hurt you. Depressing, but thought provoking, which I think could be said about all of his work.

  Non-Fiction (in the UK; Stranger than Fiction in the US) by Chuck Palahniuk Non Fiction is a collection of essays that could almost be Chuck Palahniuk’s autobiography. Unlike most autobiographies, however, Palahniuk is great judge of what the reader will find interesting, never failing to intrigue. Although only one of three sections of the book is titled ‘personal’ (the others being ‘portraits’ and ‘people together’), each essay is deeply revealing of the peculiar life and mind of the author. This collection of essays cover topics of great breadth: interactions with people at the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival (essentially an orgy), encounters with celebrities such as Marilyn Manson, the tragedy of his father’s murder and the transition of his novel Fight Club to Hollywood blockbuster. Palahniuk’s minimal style captivates, disgusts and amuses the reader with incredible ease, so much so that reading each essay feels like a lesson in how to write. So of course I’ve read this many times. I would recommend this as either an introduction to Palahniuk, or a way to get to know him better after reading books such as Choke, Fight Club or Invisible Monsters.

 

Why Believe  by John Cottingham  This is where the theology nerd in me comes out. I went into university quite confused about religion, not committing much to belief or non belief. Saying that you’re “religious” is sort of embarrassing today. With the rise of New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, there’s a commonplace association of stupidity with religion. This is derived from an understanding of religion as a system of beliefs about the world that the religious person must subscribe to. Cottingham is interesting because he presents an understanding of religion that is about engaging in practices individually and in a community, rather than ticking boxes on a list of beliefs. His argument is that practice can improve the quality of some people’s lives, and belief is secondary to this. So, neither belief nor practice need conflict with reason, science or intelligence (as the New Atheists would have you believe). I don’t think Cottingham adequately explores the value of nonreligious practices and communities (such as those based on Buddhism), but it’s a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the role of religion today.

Desperately Seeking Susan (and Ramon, and Seymour, and Chloe)

Dear Sibyl,

Throughout my life, I have been blessed with some beautiful friendships. They are the kinds of relationships in which I get to be more of who I am, make life feel more like a funny fun weird road trip, help me see, laugh, grow and play.  

However, with the exception of two arenas, I haven't felt truly at home and at ease in a group of friends. I have watched solid groups of friends, so I feel like I know what they look like, but I have a hard time speaking the language.

The two exceptions: one was an arts summer camp I went to as a teenager; there were only 25 of us, we did arts stuff all day and the same semi-weirdos came back year after year. The other was in a school environment where it was also a fixed group. I feel like neither are the way life is -- full of busy schedules, Facebook-like stuff (which I feel completely awkward with), and tons of different communities.

My friends are scattered from being around the corner, to the other side of the world. I have dipped my toes into groups but feel like I generally have to pretend a little bit. Can you help? I want my team to eat with, to shake things up with, to dance with, to cry with, to feel at ease with.

Love,

Lone Wolf in Search of a Pack

Dear Lone Wolf,

Let me take a moment to commend you for being intentional about your friendships.  In a culture obsessed with coupling off, with achieving the “goal” of marriage and kids, the fact that you are willing to develop these other, vitally important relationships in your life is a sign of depth.  Brava.  As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

On to your question.  I struggled between telling you that what you seek is a myth, a cultural creation à la Friends and Sex and the City, and simply telling you exactly how to create a meaningful group of friends.  Here is why: it is attainable---you can make yourself your very own Seinfeld, but---the more you set it up and carefully curate it, the less it will thrive.  The center will not hold.  I'm going to tell you why that is, but I'm also going to tell you how to do it anyway, and let you make your own decision about whether or not to dive in to the jungle of having a circle of friends.

There are so many amazing humans on this earth, but what fuses us together and creates a real bond between a few of them is a precarious balance of common interests, personality traits, and proximity.  Then there's that extra "oomph", that jolt of electricity when you get together, what we might call the "x factor".  Here are a few suggestions for how to gather a group of friends around you, to see if that “x factor” is there between you.

DIT: Dig In Together:  I'm sure you know several people that would vibe each other a lot, who all care about horseback riding or street art or environmentalism.  (Or perhaps all three---sounds like a fascinating group already!)  Start with a dinner party---get all these folks together at your house, bring up the latest news in the common interest they all share, and watch the magic happen.  Then, you'll need to do that very thing, consistently, for months on end, to see if it will stick.  Have the gathering rotate houses, and, hopefully, it will take on a life of its own.  People will start hanging out spontaneously, outside of the sanctioned dinners, and you will have to do less of the planning.  For your next birthday party, all you’ll have to do is show up.

Become a Regular:  Let's say you don't already have people pegged to be your very own Bloomsbury Group.  What you need to do is show up, with an incredible amount of regularity, at a place that you enjoy, and has the kind of people you want to get to know better.  This could be a Zumba class, a dive bar, a Karaokae night, a Mommy-and-Me playgroup, or even a church.  Listen, this is going to take AWHILE.  You need to be willing to stay, and to commit.  But it is the slightly less micro-managed version, since everyone has a reason to see each other every week.

Enlist:  Have you considered sneaking in to something already created?  Granted, this would work better with a loosely-formed group of friends, one that is just coming together and needs a bit of "glue" in the form of your awesome community-building skills, rather than people who have known each other since elementary, but it can work well.  Have a picnic with all those guys, ask one of them out for a drink and then suggest inviting the rest, tell them all about the pop-up store you are checking out after work---anything fun, spontaneous, and not insanely obvious.  Next thing you know, if this is the right group for you, they'll be inviting you along to Game Night or into their poetry-writing club.

Here’s the part that will be harder to hear.  These kinds of groups are ephemeral---even the Beatles broke up, even Golden Girls went off the air.  Your tight-knit, hard-won circle of buds will change over time, and probably will not last your entire life.  The most important thing to remember will be to let it go when the time is right, and appreciate the blessing of it while it lasts.

The most beautiful thing about friendship is that it is chosen.  Many times people try to subvert this, call their friends "family", and seek to guilt their friends into staying in their lives long after the time has come for them to go their separate ways.  That's the wonderful and terrible thing about friendships---as they are not family, we have no bond further than what the heart lends.  And the heart is a wily creature, rarely accepting bribes or following expected paths.

Friendship is about free choice, mutual attraction without even the bonding agent of sex to keep the intimacy level high.  It’s a bit like gardening---we can plant the seeds, water them, and prune their leaves, but we can’t make the sun shine on them, and we can’t stop them from one day drooping their little heads down, to return to the soil, fertilizing new plants in their stead.

So, Lone Wolf, I want to encourage you to cultivate this fledgling group of friends for yourself.  Watch it grow, and tend it carefully.  But also, be prepared for some hard rain, and write back to me when it’s time to till the soil.  We’ll discuss letting changes in friend groups happen with grace and grief.  I happen to know a lot about that.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Ten Years Ago

By Madeleine Forbes Ten years ago I said goodbye to my parents at Heathrow Airport. I remember they bought me breakfast, a dry croissant that stuck to the roof of my mouth. Later, I wrote in my diary that I felt “removed, relaxed, a slight sick feeling in my stomach”. I did not cry, I noted proudly, until I was walking through the tunnel from the gate.

I was eighteen years old and it was the first time I had ever been on a plane.

I feel sad when I think about that time. Sad for all the things I thought might happen that never did. The possibilities that once seemed to stretch over the horizon have gradually dissolved. That’s not a complaint, it’s just the way life is. With every year that passes, opportunities pass too. I will not, in all probability, have published my first novel before I’m thirty. I’m too old to be a prodigy, and unlikely to be a millionaire at any point: I’ve made too many choices in other directions. Ten years ago these were still things that had yet to be decided.

I thought I was an adult. I had stayed out all night at grimy raves in East London. I had been assistant director of a play which we took to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, sleeping in bunks in a hostel in the depths of the city. I’d spent three days in Paris with a boy I loved, who had subsequently broken my heart. I thought that one of the things that the trip would achieve would be finally moving on from him.

I had been waitressing and working front of house at a children’s theatre, so I was financially independent. Kind of. I had saved for the trip myself but as I was still living with my parents and paying no rent or bills, I now see this for the delusion it was. I knew how to roll a joint, flirt, write essays, and drive a car. I had secured a place at Oxford University to read English Literature, and now I was off on my requisite gap year travels. I was going to become a Well Rounded Person and Find Myself, and write some kind of Great Work in the process.

So when the volunteer program in Northern India, which I’d written about lovingly on my university applications, fell through, I was unfazed. I’d read a lot of Lonely Planets by then and Southeast Asia sounded easy. A piece of cake. I don’t remember feeling any fear as I found the cheapest flight, which happened to feature a change of planes in Kuwait. In 2003 the second gulf war was just starting and I remember that I was worried a US invasion of Iraq might disrupt my plans. I felt kind of glamorous as I speculated about it, as though I had already gained something of what I wanted from traveling, without actually having gone anywhere.

I had nothing booked and no contacts. I read and read, my way of making sense of the world back then when I still trusted words above all else. I had memorized almost every aspect of my potential route, train connections and visa requirements and areas to avoid. I had a tiny first aid kit and a travel towel and a money belt and a mosquito net. I had reduced my possessions, as advised by the Lonely Planet, to the bare minimum. I had I think one pair of shorts, one pair of trousers, a couple of t shirts. I planned to be away for at least six months.

As things turned out, the boy I was getting over is the same one I’m planning our wedding with now. I thought I was starting my career as a writer, filling notebook after notebook with smudges and stains from the cheap blotchy biros I bought on the road. This year, finally writing again, I finished the stack of blank books I brought home with me, like little neon tiles, adorned with kitschy asian cartoons. It was like picking up a baton from eighteen year old me.

There was that long patch in between. A decade, in fact. When I tried out wanting other things. I tried so hard I went full circle and had to go away again. That’s another story, involving bicycles, wild boar and a Uruguyan nomad, and that’s how I find myself here.

All those miles later, back where I started. Eighteen and stupid. I didn’t understand anything then, and yet I knew more than I thought I did. In a funny way, I already knew everything.

White Smoke in Rome

It is hard to express the immense emotions that filled my heart when I passed by St Peter’s square on April 13^th and saw the white smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Witnessing the Pope election wasn’t the purpose of my trip to Rome, and yet that was the part that made it incredible.

My mom and I arrived in St. Peter around 6.30 PM of a rainy Wednesday afternoon. The sky was getting dark, my boots were soaked with rain, and my mom’s mood was high as I kept coughing and sneezing. But the day had been great, so we stopped by the square hoping for some more good luck. Honestly, we never thought we could see the white smoke at our very first attempt, since this usually takes up to a few days. We found a spot under the colonnade, so at least we wouldn’t get wetter, and I fought for some space with a French girl who was fierce and quite determined to have more square inches than needed all for herself. But again, the pain was worth it. We waited until 7.10, and when the smoke appeared out of the chimney of the conclave room the first thing that came to my mind was that sometimes the color can be confusing, as it looks grey more than white or black. By the seconds my doubts vanished and reality became clear---the white cloud grew bigger and bigger, people started screaming (my mom right into my left ear!) and the Catholic Church had a new Pope.

Almost an hour passed between the smoke and his appearance. An hour filled with great hopes for the future. Nobody knew the new Pope’s name yet, and people were guessing, talking and gesturing excitedly to strangers and whoever was around. Would he be from Europe again or from another continent? Would this Pope warm young hearts just like John Paul II? Would he give us words that we will always remember and pass on to the future generations like Pope John XXIII? His speeches were poetic, sweet, simple, and yet contained innovative elements. I wasn’t born in 1962, but the words he pronounced at the opening of the council are still famous and precious: “Returning home, you will find children. Give a caress to them and say: this is the caress of the Pope. You will find some tears to dry, so say a good word: the Pope is with us, especially in times of sadness and bitterness.”

As Pope Francis started talking from St. Peter’s balcony, it was evident from the very beginning that he will be no traditional Pope, and this couldn’t make people happier in such time of crisis. His name did the rest. Francis explained later that his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, “teaches us profound respect for the whole of creation and the protection of our environment, which all too often, instead of using for the good, we exploit greedily, to one another’s detriment.” He also said his family’s international roots---his parents were born in Italy and then moved to Argentina---means that the “dialogue between places and cultures a great distance apart matters greatly to me.” As simple as he seems to be, Pope Francis even surprised the owner of a newsstand in Buenos Aires with a phone call to explain that he will no longer need a morning paper delivered every day. All good signs that we may eventually have some good surprises in the future.

Mom and I strolled happily back to our hotel, floating among a crowd of pushing people with smiles on our faces. Part of me feels turned on by this event---lately my faith has been kind of latent. At the end of April I will be going to Jerusalem with my husband, and what was planned as an exciting trip in a land we have never seen and we have only heard about is slowly becoming in my intentions an opportunity to discover the deep roots of my religion.

What was meant as a nice trip to our country capital definitely ended with a pleasant surprise, and filled my heart with hope and new blessings. More pictures from Rome on www.alicepluswonderland.blogspot.com.

If not now, when?

‘I need a mental health day,’ I thought to myself in the late afternoon.  This desperate impulse came after the last in a series of indignities, mounting responsibilities and frustrations surrounding work, travel and family.  I was standing in line, waiting for coffee, when I realized my breathing was a little too shallow and my stomach was churning.  My mind scrambled and slid over panicked thoughts of work that would get pushed forward yet another day.  I clutched my iPhone in a death grip and it felt white-hot in my hand, having already recharged it once since pulling it from the wall eight hours earlier.  DING, went the insistent alert tone, indicating another new email.  When it occurred to me that I am my own boss and I could technically, literally fold the laptop closed and shut it all down for the day, I felt a glint of relief.  Of course, if you ask any person who works for herself, you will hear about the sensation of near constant pressure and generalized anxiety that does not defer to the bounds of the hours between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. As you might expect, despite a clear recognition that I am suffering the ill effects of stress, I didn’t turn tail at that point and head back to the apartment.  I persisted in working through the day and even felt some perverse sense of exhilaration knowing that I had beat back the creeping beast.  There is apparently some distinction in ignoring the warning signs of a mind and body teetering on the brink of collapse.

While this may sound melodramatic, I am ripe for a break down.  I tell you this not to burden you or try and arouse sympathy.  I have a superb and dynamic support system.  I say it because we all have to start taking better care of ourselves right this very minute.  Most of you are like me and you don’t do it well enough---it might even be something that never enters your conscious thought.  You might never have deliberately considered, ‘How am I doing?’

I was reminded this week---in the way you hope you never have to be---that life is invaluable and that the people living it are fragile.  It can be a slippery slope from suffering the strains of the daily grind to taking your own life.  When something like that happens, it feels irresponsible, disrespectful not to take a personal inventory.  You owe it to yourself and the people that love you.

The Fundamentals (I am not a doctor.  I am not a sleep expert.  I am not a nutritionist.  I am a clinical social worker, but mostly these reminders are derived from my personal investigation.):

1)   Get enough sleep.  I am averaging 5-6 hours these days and a grown adult needs more like 7-9.  Even an hour or two less than your body requires can have devastating effects, including putting you at increased risk for a range of psychiatric conditions.  Learn more about your sleep needs here.

2)   Drink mostly water and lots of it.  Stay hydrated.  Your body uses water for everything and needs at least 8 glasses a day to run effectively.  Sugary, caffeinated drinks do not count toward hydration (my delicious afternoon coffee notwithstanding) and often serve to dehydrate you.

3)   Eat in a way that nourishes your body.  Eat frequently – small meals with protein, fresh fruits and vegetables and complex carbohydrates.  Eat what’s in season.

4)   When you begin to feel overwhelmed in whatever domain in your life, stop and reprioritize.  Figure out only what absolutely needs to be done.  Then give yourself even more latitude with that short list.

5)   If you are experiencing physical symptoms---headaches, stomachaches, short of breath, ruminating instead of sleeping---take immediate action.  Take a day off, if you can.  Consider yourself in a state of emergency and respond proportionally.

6)   Reach out to others.  Instead of caving inward, turn to those around you and ask for help.  Particularly if you are person who is stoic or simply presents well under duress, you would be surprised to learn how few people close to you are aware of your struggle.  This is partly true because each of us is so immersed in our own.

7)   Talk to a professional.  You and I and a million people like us can help de-stigmatize therapy.  We can say out loud that we are vulnerable and benefit from added support.  If you had heart disease, you would go straight to the cardiologist.  If you are struggling with your emotional or mental health, why wouldn’t you go see a therapist?

I am going to get through this weekend’s big deliverables and then take some time for self-care and family travel.   Just knowing I am going to do this with intention is already helping.  I am also going to see my therapist when I get back, because why wouldn’t I?  What could possibly be more important?

Cursing in the Var

By Kayla Allen The day started auspiciously enough, with a visit to the Villa Noailles, a modernist structure designed in 1923 by Robert Mallet Stevens.  My three children romped in the triangular cubist garden.  I wallowed in the view from the hillside, a span that stretched above the ancient city of Hyeres and out to sea, beyond the Iles d’Or, the three islands punctuating the coastline.  Our annual summer trip to France had rolled around and in this Eden-like setting I felt smugly serene.  I vowed to the wind, water and sky: this vacation, I would get along with the Var-ois.

I had previously lived in the region that runs along the Riviera and stretches to the vineyards of Bandol, with a hefty Provencal overlap into the Luberon.  But my two year stay in Hyeres was marred by grumpy bigots and xenophobes who would wag their fingers at this lanky blonde American and her dingo-like dog any chance they got.  I revealed my nationality simply by saying a warm Louisiana “bonjour” to whomever I passed on the street.  People wouldn’t respond, they’d stare back, mortified.  The residents of this region of France are notorious, even among their countrymen, for an acute grouch factor, totally incongruous with the calm waters of the Mediterranean and the perpetual sun.

In the late 1800s Hyeres drew crowds as a hopping winter escape for British and Russian aristocrats.  Robert Louis Stevenson made an extended pit stop and later remarked, “I was only happy once, that was in Hyeres.” But his stay came nearly a century before Jean-Marie LePen set up camp in the region with his extreme right Front National Party.  Jean-Marie LePen has managed to hold various elected offices while spewing vitriolic messages of hate, with poisonous arrows sometimes aimed at American foreign policy and culture.  When I am in town, it seems I always bump into his staunchest supporters.

I was happy to leave Shreveport, pleased to be back in Europe and determined not to let my husband’s cranky compatriots interfere with my trip.  After my blissful morning at the Villa Noailles, I made a trip to Geant Casino, France’s version of Wal-Mart. Mia, my three-year-old toddler, six months out of diapers, tagged along.

We strolled through the produce section, Mia contentedly following along, pushing a cart tailor-made for her height.  She reveled in her independence and her alone-time with me.  As we entered the bread department she stopped in her tracks and announced,  “I need to pee-pee, Mommy.”  Her timing could not have been worse.  I instinctively knew French grocery stores did not have toilets.  If they did, they would be like all public restrooms in France, covered in mulch of an undetermined nature.  No toilet paper to be found, possibly a tiny sink that might offer a sluggish stream of cold water, and certainly no soap.

“Honey, can you wait?”  I calculated how much time it would take us to return to our rental.  But just as I asked, a small yellow rivulet zigzagged down her legs, creating a puddle at her feet.

“Accident, mommy.”

No problem.  I searched for an employee and magically found an amiable enough Produce Guy within seconds. I explained in my acceptable French that my daughter had had a mishap.  I even offered to clean it, if he had a few extra paper towels handy.

As he nipped off to find suitable products, I asked Mia not to move in order to keep the mess contained.  Meantime, another shopper treaded dangerously close and I warned her in my most cordial voice.  Here’s how it translated:  “Excuse me – please be careful, my daughter had an accident.  It is better maybe don’t promenade upon it.  I’m waiting for some wiping material now.”

This woman, a traditional Var-oise whose skin had been baked to a leathery crisp, looked at me as if I’d just sucked down a Big Gulp and followed it with a whopping Yankee belch.  Her mouth turned down at the corners and her nostrils flared like she was the main attraction in a bullring.  She pushed her dyed black hair out of her eyes, leaned over to grab a loaf of bread and whispered “petite salope.”  Huh?  Had she called my daughter or me a little bitch?

My hackles shot straight up.

The nice Produce Guy came with the towels and I started cleaning Mia while he mopped the innocent mess. I turned to the woman.  “Vous avez une problem, madame?”  I asked.

She emitted an evil glow and smirked. “Put a diaper on her, alors!”

Defending oneself against rude inhabitants in foreign countries only amounts to extreme tedium. But when unjustifiable insolence is directed at the most perfect three year-old girl in the world, rage follows.  I was dazed by my indignation.  In stunned silence I checked Mia and told her everything was okay (she sported quick drying nylon pants).  Next, I approached this monster before she left our section and in my best negative-adrenaline-rush French spouted, “Why would you speak something like this?  Why would you insult my child in such a way?  She made an accident, which is normal for a person of this age!”

She responded with an irritated shrug, “She had an accident but someone else must clean it up.”

I said, “That’s not your problem.  You are mean.  You are very very mean.”  I grew frustrated at my tragically impotent communication skills.

I should have left it at this, and God knows I tried. I looked at precious Mia standing behind her toddler cart.  If I’d had the capability to actually think, I could have mused on whether or not allowing her to see my increasing anger was a good idea.

But instead, every Gallic affront I’d ever suffered accumulated in that instant at Geant Casino.  And while I’ve enjoyed many wonderful moments during my Francophile years, my mind reeled back to insults hurled, starting in the 80s.  Then I first journeyed to France as a neophyte model and magazine editors balked at my size 4, saying I was “porcine.” I thought about the malicious queue-breakers at museums who laughed with disdain when I protested.  All the catty shop-girls and condescending waiters I’d ever encountered morphed into a clichéd montage of scornful pointy-noses and mono-brows. I rifled mentally through the piles of hurt and feelings of inferiority from years past.

“O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!” I called on Shakespeare for calm, but I could not reason with myself.  My earlier vow to avoid getting riled disappeared and my ire switched to high beam.

I took a moment for inward reflection and breathed deep.  I tapped into my inner stash of French curse words, honed from years of stoned, drunken nights with my favorite Eurobuddies in bars and hostels across the continent.   And I told myself Mia couldn’t yet understand the language, at least not in the way I intended to abuse it.

I strode two aisles over and found Bullwoman examining cheese. “Oh you again?” she said casually.

Yes, me again.  I would make it so that she never forgot me.  She’d never nonchalantly slur others.  Besides debasing my daughter, she’d offended my mothering skills.

I addressed her using the informal “tu-tois”, already an insult. “Toi, tu est une grosse conne.”  You are a large idiot.  With the right tone it could’ve sounded worse, but I was just getting warmed up.  I checked Mia’s whereabouts.  She lagged behind me, not in earshot.

Bullwoman responded, “You should learn to speak French, alors.”  She followed that with an aside: “Etranger.  C’a ma fait chier.”  The Var-ois have an irritating habit of hissing “foreigner” whenever a foreigner is around.  But to tell me I was annoying her?

The time had come to throw down.  My passionate response:  “nique ta-mere.” Not only a vulgar way of implying she should have intercourse with her mother, but also the name of a popular rap group from the Paris suburbs.  I followed that with a quick “va te faire enculer” implying she should have sex with herself, but via a non-traditional route.

“Casse-toi,” she replied.  A simple “bugger off” to which I could not muster a rebuttal.

I returned to Mia, totally dry by now, barely smelling of sweet baby pee.  I tried to focus on my shopping, as I stocked up on gruyere, creamy yogurt, and cornichons.  I fumed my way through saucisson and jambon.   The gall, the Gaul!

People are so polite where I come from that if a little girl accidentally peed in public a stranger would rip off a shirtsleeve to help clean it up.   They’d sponsor a bake sale at their church to buy billboard space stating to the world what a great job I was doing as a mother, and as a human being on Planet Earth.

But I languished in the Var.

As I paid for my goods and headed for the exit, I couldn’t help but turn and scan the check out lines for my Var-oise nemesis.  It was easy to spot her pernicious aura.  Instinctively, I wheeled my cart back inside, resolute in my desire to have the last word.  Plus, I was having fun.  In the words of Montaigne, “No one is exempt from speaking nonsense, the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.”

When she saw me coming she rolled her eyes.   Good, I thought, I’m getting to her.  I smiled.  “Madame, je comprends tres bien ton problem,” in a low voice and with deliberate calm, I continued in French.  “Tu a besoin d’etre bien baiser, mais il ne personne qui veux.   Bonne chance.”  Translation:  “Ma’am, I know what your problem is.  You need to get laid but no one will have you.  I wish you the best of luck.”  Her response: a simple jaw-drop to the scuzzy linoleum-tiled floor.

And with that, I marched triumphant to my car. Without the likes of Bullwoman I would have never have broken past years of suppressed anger.  Now when a Var-ois behaves offensively, I smile, shrug my shoulders, and head to the nearest beach.

Slow Browsing

Window shopping was a fact of life when I lived in Boston. Since I walked everywhere or took public transportation, it was impossible not to peek at the window displays or stop in for a browse at one of the many curious shops on my way to and from work and school. The bookshops of Harvard Square—Raven Books, Harvard Book Store, Grolier Poetry, Globe, Schoenhof’s—were particularly irresistible, but anything from the watch shop on Church Street to the Anthropologie store (set mercilessly behind a three-story wall of glass) could lure me in just as easily.

There were a couple of things, though, that kept me from whiling away my whole life in those perfectly curated shops and breaking the bank on the whole lot of it. First, I was broke, so there’s only a certain amount of time you can stand to spend among small, brightly colored objects that cost more than your grocery bill for the month. Second, I had rule: love it and leave it.

If I found something I really truly absolutely loved and “needed,” I made a special point of admiring it and then promptly leaving the store without it. It was pure anguish, but it was a perfect test. I told myself that if it was still on my mind in a week, I’d come back for it, and if it was still there, well, perhaps it was meant to be.

For the most part, those things I thought I couldn’t live without disappeared within twenty-four hours into my vast mental archive of objects briefly admired but never possessed. The things that stuck were rare and sometimes unexpected. A pair of boots I wore to pieces over several years. A yellow, vintage-looking kitchen timer I never came back for because I was sure I didn’t need it. I’m still sure, but it persists in my memory years later.

I’ve been thinking lately that a similar policy might help with my internet consumption. There are so very many lovely things to read online that I could spend my whole life consuming them, never stopping to let one of them sink in, never returning to being and doing in the world. The ever-changing landscape of the internet lends a sense of urgency to all this. If I don’t read it right now, it might be gone later, I might forget about it entirely, or worse, I might not be able to retrace the winding path of links that led me to it in the first place.

In order to deal with the last fear, I’ve taken to bookmarking articles of interest in Evernote and making an effort to avoid reading every great thing I find on the spot. If it’s really worth my time, I’ll remember it later and come back for it. If not, well, I suppose it disappears then into my digital archive of things briefly admired and never possessed. For what it’s worth, at least the digital archive is searchable, and perhaps I’ve saved myself as much time as I saved money during my student days in a land of beautiful and expensive things.