A Taxonomy of Fear

In my early years of ballet training, I developed a fear of falling. We would rehearse for months and months in anticipation of just a handful of performances, and as opening night approached, my fear grew stronger. There were many underlying reasons for my fear, and I could categorize them into neat little groups. There were the fears related to suffering—the worry that a fall would result in physical injuries, or at least, if it happened on stage, a great deal of shame. There were the fears related to failure and the sense that a fall was a sign of some shortcoming in my training, ability, or commitment. Above all, there was a gripping fear of the unknown. What would it feel like to fall, mid-flight, and what would happen afterwards?

Another dancer assured me that I had nothing to worry about and that my anxieties would disappear after my first fall. Of course, her confidence in the inevitability of falling terrified me even more, but in the end, she was right.

Eventually, my fear ballooned to the point where I would stand in the wings crushing rosin repeatedly with my shoes. I became certain that every floor was as slick as ice and that I would do best to ensure that my feet were practically glued to the floor. Of course, this was entirely counterproductive.

After one such rosin-crushing session, I rushed onto the stage with my fellow snowflakes for the frenzy that is the snow scene in the Nutcracker. We were running at top speed in cocentric circles, and before I knew it, I had landed flat on my face in a sea of tulle, dry ice, and fake snow.

Fortunately, my fears about falling onstage were proven wrong in an instant. It didn’t hurt (at least not until the adrenaline wore off), and no one seemed to notice. What happened next was simply that I popped back up immediately and kept running before I even had time to realize what had happened.

Sometimes we have the opportunity to face our fears, by will or by accident. We can climb mountains, hold snakes, speak to packed auditoriums, and pick ourselves up when we fall. These are opportunities for empowerment and for realizing our own potential. In other cases, however, we hope very much that our greatest fears will never play out in reality.

In the wake of public trauma and personal turning points, it seems appropriate to take inventory of our fears, to line them up in broad daylight and see them for what they really are.

Not all fears have the same weight or character. Some are rational, some irrational. Some are universal; others derive from individual experience. Sometimes we are most afraid of what we don’t know, and sometimes we are afraid of what we know too well.

Fear is a perfectly natural part of the human condition. I’ve had to remind myself of this whenever I’ve worried that my own fears were ridiculous or when I have allowed those fears to get in the way of joy. By bringing our fears to light and acknowledging them as a part of our shared experience, we may find opportunity for connection and give ourselves permission to live abundantly.

XXXIII. Savoie

I am the youngest one in the French language program in Chambéry, but was immediately placed in the highest level of classes upon my arrival. After the first month, the lessons begin to repeat themselves. My attention wanes.

In February another young student arrives, a Swiss boy named Laurent. We get along in class and while having coffee from the instant machine in the center’s common space, and after a couple weeks he asks me to have a drink with him in town.

My solitude, especially with my experience running, has made me suspicious of all men. I don’t know what Laurent wants from me, if he thinks I’m pretty or not, and I don’t trust him for it. We go to a bar and I cover myself up, wearing clothes that show none of my skin or even a hint of shape.

Laurent is easy to talk to about music, travel, food, and he walks me home after we have a few drinks. Instead of letting him kiss me---as I now know he wants to, and I wouldn’t mind either---I thank him for the drink, tell him I’ll see him in class, and shut the gate firmly behind me.

I have a bad habit, I realize as I walk slowly up the stairs to my dark apartment, of deciding how things will go before they happen. And these self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t getting me anywhere.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Cyndi's first book was a children's story about mischievous kangaroos that she also illustrated. Though no more than one copy was ever produced, it received accolades from Ms. Smith, her third grade teacher, and her mother. She has been writing ever since. She's published in Ms. magazine. You can follow her adventures on her travel and lifestyle blog Travel, Hike, Eat. Repeat. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her highly energetic dog, Theodore the Bagle Hound. I called my Mom. She lives in Georgia—16 hours from D.C. by car, a 2 hour flight, an overnight train ride. We’re close, but we don’t talk very often. Instead, excited by her new iPhone, she likes to text me. She sent me a picture a few weeks ago of a crockpot my cousin got for her birthday. She accidentally made it my dedicated image, so that bright red crockpot shows up whenever I call.

So, anyway, I called my Mom. The crockpot popped up as her Verizon ringtone jingled, and she answered laughing. She has a giant, booming laugh. I got that from her.

“I want to ask what’s cookin’ whenever you call!” She’s pretty funny.

But I had serious business to discuss.

“Mom, do you remember how we fought so much when I was 16 that we could barely stand each other?”

She sighed into the phone. “I keep hoping I’ll forget, but I haven’t yet.”

“I read this book with a bunch of research in it”---the Waite family is very eloquent---“and it had a chapter on how it’s a good thing when teenagers fight with their parents.”

“I’m skeptical.”

“Research shows that when teens don’t fight back, they’re more likely to be hiding things. Fighting is a healthy way to explore your autonomy while keeping your parents in the loop. Mom, we fought because I love you.” I said this last bit with a dramatic flair.

She paused for a minute. “CYNDI? ARE YOU THERE? I THINK I PUT IT ON SPEAKERPHONE.”

I love my Mom.

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

When I joined a new book club, and I saw that the next selection was on child psychology and parenting, I balked a bit. I’m single and child-free and was very confused. I thought about skipping it and waiting to join until the next month, but I’m glad I didn’t. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s essays and insight into child psychology fascinated and captivated me.

The nonfiction book is chock full of research, studies, and analysis, and somehow it still reads as quickly and engagingly as your favorite novel. I found myself in the statistics (and occasionally outside of them), and I brought up chapters with my boyfriend and friends at every opportunity---learning about their childhood and teen years, as well as gaining new perspectives.

I loved this book, and I’m better for having read it. My favorite chapters dealt with IQ development and the gifted system in education, and, of course, those contentious, angst-filled teenage years (did you know that teenagers experience an increase in a brain chemical that keeps them up later at night?). If I do have children, this will be the most well-worn book I own.

Speaking of my Mom, she has as much directional awareness as I do, which is to say, none at all. I have gotten lost in my own neighborhood . . . multiple times. So has she. There’s this line she used to say, whenever I’d ask her if we were lost en route to any destination (inevitably, we were always lost). She used to say, “We’re not lost, we’re finding a new way.” I don’t have any tattoos, but if I were to ever get one, it would be that line, maybe with a compass, because those words have been my North Star since I was about five years old.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Henry Skrimshander is lost, but like all great heroes and heroines, he’s finding a new way. A small baseball player without any college prospects, he’s “discovered” by a tall, burly player from Westish College. Henry becomes one of the greats and is destined for the big league until one mistake unravels him. Henry’s story is the glue, the centerfold that keeps the pages together, but it’s four other characters whose nuanced stories and experiences made me well with a full range of emotion page after page. I cried when I finished the last page, in part because I cry at nearly everything, but mostly because I was devastated that I’d never get to read this book for the first time ever again. Would you hate me if I said it’s a home run?

Look to the Best

I was a freshman in college when the twin towers fell.  I didn't know anyone in New York then, and I hadn't yet met my husband who has family throughout the boroughs and an uncle who worked at the WTC.  I watched news reports with my roommates, in shock like the rest of the world. My university didn't cancel classes that day or the next---the decision was left up to the individual professors.  Many professors called off their lessons, but not mine; the next morning found me taking my seat in my art history class.  Before she turned on the slide projector my professor stood for a moment and spoke briefly about her decision.

'Sometimes' she said 'After seeing the worst humanity can do, it's important to take time and look to the best we can do'.  And then she started class, launching into slides and a lecture about great painters and the masterpieces that still awe us centuries later.

I don't watch the news, it's a personal choice and the reasons are longer than I will get into here.  I prefer to seek out written reports and monitor my consumption.  But Monday evening I was feeling like most people---wondering Why, and so I turned on a national broadcast, searching for answers.  I watched for about 20 minutes---long enough to realize that no matter what was said, the television could likely never answer that question to my satisfaction.

As I turned off the television, I remembered those words from my professor, more than ten years ago.  I sat in my living room and listened to a record and the rain outside.  And I thought of the coverage I had seen, the videos I watched, the stories I read, the photos I saw.  The images and words that I kept circling back through.

Soldiers pulling down barricades to clear the way for medical help.

Medical staff prepared to treat muscle cramps and fatigue launching into action against injuries they could never have anticipated.

Police officers in florescent yellow vests running towards the smoke.

It's important to take a moment and look at the best humanity can do.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to read Roxanne's essay, Boston: Stories of Compassion and The Atlantic's post Stories of Kindness

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

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.

XXXII. Provence

A mere two months after I return from Chambéry, back to France I go. Still somewhat emotionally scarred from my self-imposed exile, I’m initially nervous to go back when I feel like I just escaped. But, as I already knew, each region of France proves to be drastically different from the others. Savoie was cold and gloomy in the late winter; July in Provence is as close to ideal as I’ve found.

My parents rent a house through a university faculty exchange website. Nestled in the hills surrounding Aix, we spend a couple weeks drinking coffee on the porch in the shade of a fig tree and later wandering into town to drink pressions pêches and eat pizzas with capers the size of my fist in the evenings at La Calèche, a restaurant that I return to many times when I spend my junior semester in the city three years later. I go for long runs out into the countryside, and the blue skies and sunflower-yellow farmhouses soon restore my faith in this country. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, after all.

Feeling like seeing more of the region, we sign up for a cheesy bus tour and take a day trip to the Luberon valley. It really is as beautiful as Peter Mayle made it out to be---rows of lavender fields, stark limestone, vineyards and villages clinging to hilltops. Each photo I take looks like it could be in a calendar, days checked off underneath in neat, square boxes.

I quickly develop a crush on our tour guide, a young, charming Frenchman named Thibaut, whose shiny hair and scarf are just feminine enough to be incredibly attractive. And oh, that accent. As we pass by yet another pristine cherry orchard, Thibaut makes the effort to describe to the English-speaking group the sheer sensual pleasure that is eating une cerise provençale. I am enraptured.

"Zey are so sweet," he sighs, pursing his lips and gesturing vaguely in that uniquely French way. "Zey are so good.”

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.

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.

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.

xxxi. normandie

My regular spot in Bernay is Brin d’Zinc, a bar that Clémence and her friends seem to have been going to since they were in collège, the French version of middle school. Smoking indoors is still legal, and the yellow interior is full of French teenagers lighting up over their beers. I am immediately a part of the crowd; with Clémence as my host sister, I came to Normandie with a ready-made group of friends waiting for me.

My drink of choice is one that Fréd introduced me to: pression pêche, a draft beer with peach syrup. Stereotypically girly, sure, but it’s delicious and fresh and I get one every time we go in, Clémence ordering one for me along with hers. On our third or fourth visit, I work up the courage to stride up to the bar and order my own. Une pression pêche, s’il vous plaît!

But I am nervous and tripping over my words. The “r” in pression turns flat, hard. American. The smiling barman laughs and makes me repeat the phrase until I get it right — not in a mean way, but still. It takes me two more tries before he slides the beer across the bar.

Face burning, I carry my drink back to the table and take a sip while Clémence pats my shoulder encouragingly. The beer still tastes good, only slightly tainted with humiliation.

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.

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. 

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.

A Year

I’ve been in the same place for a year.  I know because the lease is up.  It’s one of those weird tricks of time that it feels shorter and longer all at the same time.  Shorter because I can vividly remember the beginning: Slowly moving in, unpacking things I hadn’t seen in over a year, little treasures and mementos, my furniture unpacked from storage and graciously carted the hour and a half journey by my parents, the elation at being in our own place and the shock that we ended up here in the middle of nowhere. Longer because there’s been so many memories made between then and now: visits from family, traveling around the state, eating at the local diner.  There’ve been new jobs and adventures, afternoons spent playing video games and sipping cocktails and quiet nights sitting and reading together.

A year ago I dropped my husband off at work, and drove the thirty miles to our new home. I found the key where the landlord said it was hidden, unlocked the front door and walked in.  I walked through all the rooms, making sure they were just as I remembered. I open and shut cabinets, peered into the refrigerator, flipped light switches, and then I danced around in the living room like a total spaz.  My husband and I had been living with family members for a year and a half, having our own place again was Christmas morning to me.  Family (both his and mine) are amazing, but there’s so much freedom when it’s your own.

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A year ago I was excited to be moving into a place of our own.  But I was also a little lost.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do or what I was going to do, I was still job searching, scouring the internet for a job I could do from my new home. I was also still a little broken; I hid it well, but deep down things weren’t peachy. I was upset about the way I came to be back in the states, I felt the universe had forced my hand and I didn’t understand why. I was afraid to examine the feelings too closely so I shuttered them deep within and ignored the fact that I couldn’t speak about the fact that our plans, my plans, went up in a cloud of smoke. I ignored the fact that I wasn’t sleeping well.

Soon I found a job, one that I could do online with a company I respect.  Not long after that I found the Equals Record, summoned up my courage and sent a fan-girlesque letter to Elisabeth and Miya. Slowly I started hanging pictures on the walls and setting out knick-knacks. I settled in to this strange new existence and accepted that maybe things do always happen for a reason, and maybe this was the reason. Maybe I needed time away, time spent in a quiet rural area, time spent with just my husband for company.  Maybe I needed the time to slowly heal and accept, and then I needed the time after that to celebrate and see the possibilities again.  I needed mornings spent sipping mimosas, afternoons full of video games, and evenings spent writing thoughts on a page.  I needed the room and the place. I didn’t know it, but I found both a year ago.

Lessons from Springtime...

Dearest Clara,

We thought it would never come but sunnier days, warmer breezes and little shoots of green are finally on their way.  After winter seemed to return again and again this year, I think springtime has finally arrived.

When I notice the days finally getting longer, I become a happier person.  It’s a gift to see the seasons renew right before our eyes and here are a few things that help celebrate the coming spring season:

• Go outside on that first really gorgeous day: Drop what your doing. . . sneak out of work early. . . cancel that evening you planned to spend inside cooking or studying or cleaning.  This is the time to enjoy the fresh air, to grab sandwiches and enjoy lunch in the park, to walk the long way home. Inevitably, the winter chills always pop back once or twice after we see the first signs of spring but if you make the time to enjoy it, it will stay springtime in your heart.  Don’t let those first warm rays of the season pass you by.
• Clean out your closet: Go through and assess what doesn’t work for you with the change of the year, and figure out what won’t work for you at all anymore.  If it’s too old, needs too many repairs or needs too many pounds one way or the other, lose it.  You’ll feel better going into spring when you look at items you actually wear in your closet---somehow with less things, we often have more options.
• Buy something in color: Now that you have all that room in your closet, you can afford a little treat.  We spend so much of winter in practical blacks, browns, greys. . . at least I do.  Celebrate spring by buying something in color---it might be a shirt, or a scarf or a necklace. . . it doesn’t have to be big, but just a small thing that helps you celebrate the fresh start of spring.
• Take a walk in the rain: While what we often appreciate most about spring is the sunshine, the thing that really makes spring possible is the rain.  When living in Normandy, I couldn’t wait for the rains to stop until someone reminded me that if it didn’t rain so much, we wouldn’t have so much greenery to enjoy.  Make the time to enjoy a rainy walk and just look around to see how much it feeds the colors and growth around you.  Take that same walk in the sunshine afterwards and you’ll appreciate a whole new world around you.
• Have a happy new year: Your Christian roots will teach you to celebrate this time of year as a renewal in the church calendar; your Persian roots will teach you to celebrate spring as a new year of new beginnings.  Like January for calendar years, and September for school years, use this variation of a new year to wipe the slate clean and reset yourself for a fresh start.  If you made New Year’s resolutions, check in with them to see how you’re doing---where you need to refocus, and where you need to reframe.  The beautiful thing about new years of any kind is that they are full of new beginnings, take advantage of that.

All my love,

Mom

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?

Grand Cayman: A Home Away From Home

By Eloise Blondiau Grand Cayman looks exactly like the postcards: white sand, a calm ocean and a diamond sun set in an azure sky. The hot, salty air hits you as soon as you step out of the plane and onto the steps leading down to the runway. I think if I had only been here once, it would be easy to dismiss the island as just that: a pretty picture on a postcard. But having spent almost every summer there---though I've lived in big, grey London all my life---Cayman looks a lot like home.

Before I could walk I used to climb up my Godfather’s globular belly as he reclined on the balcony overlooking the ocean. Not long after, I chipped my front tooth on edge the bath in his apartment and had to have it removed, leaving me with a comical smile until it grew in eight years later. I accidentally spilled most of my first beer in the jacuzzi with my older sister and her cool friends. In Cayman, I had my first kiss; first date---coincidentally still the only date where I've been picked up on a waverunner. I had my first holiday with a boyfriend here, too.

I learned how to snorkel in Cayman. My twin brother and I used to race into the ocean clumsily in our fins and headgear, smashing through the soft, glassy turquoise. We would splash gracelessly to the nearby reef to explore, searching for great whites. Although we did once come face to face with a barracuda, and the odd lobster, we never did find those sharks. If we were lucky, our parents took us to Stingray City, where schools of stingrays glide over sandbanks in open water. You can wade in the shallow water, their silky white underbellies tickling as they brush past. You can even feed the rays from an outstretched fist and watch them suck out the squid with an abrupt slurp. Although these stingrays are generally harmless unless threatened (read: trodden on), doing this still makes me feel like the fearless adventurer I longed to be as a child.

Last summer may have been one of my last in Cayman. My Godfather passed away a few years ago, leaving his huge, worn armchair empty beside the seaside view. I like to fill this vacancy by sitting there myself; thinking about him watching the news in his flip-flops and his swimming shorts. We miss him and remember him always, recalling the many stories he told us and all the wisdom learned from him as often as we can. My poor Godmother misses him the most. Now she lives alone in that beautiful apartment in the sunshine, with no one else to care for, to chatter to, to scold, to cook dinner for. She won't want to live alone there forever, and soon we will all have to leave Cayman behind.

On a rare sunny day in England, I can close my eyes and, concentrating very hard on the sun above me, transport myself to Seven Mile Beach. What is beyond simulation in London, however, is my Cayman sunset.

There is no better way to end the day than by sitting before the great ocean and all the life within it. The sun smoulders orange, until it disappears over the horizon and is swallowed by the cool sea.