XXXIV. Normandie

Pauline, Roger, Clémence, Praline---le chien---and I pile into the car and off we go on a road trip to see the Mont Saint-Michel, one of the most-recognized and most-visited tourist spots in all of France.

The Mont is an abbey on an island just half a mile or so off of the coastline. When the tides come in, the walkway to the Mont is covered, and the island is inaccessible by foot; the tides go out, and it’s an easy walk across. Approaching the Mont St. Michel is one of the more intimidating experiences I’ve had in my seventeen years of life. After all, I grew up in Ohio. It’s rare to see something so old.

After a tour of the abbey and a lunch of omelets and mussels at one of the overpriced restaurants inside the Mont’s walls, we escape from the crowded, narrow paths out onto a platform that offers a view over the Channel.

As the four of us are huddled together and buffeted by the sea salt winds, Roger starts to explain the tides to me---or at least I think he does. Originally from the north, Roger has an accent that is difficult to understand even for native French speakers, much less me. In addition, he is the proud grower of one of the largest moustaches I have ever seen in person, grey and bushy and curled up at the corners. It’s a thing to behold, but it muffles his speech. After a solid 15 minutes of me nodding and pretending like I know what he’s saying, all I’ve gotten is something about sheep and salty grass. I even have to look up the word tides when we get back to the car.

Roger, however, is satisfied that he has imparted some knowledge onto me. And I am more certain than ever that people are very hard to understand.

What Happens in the Margins

For those of us who are planners, it can take a lot of restraint not to plan our days and lives down to the very second, so that nothing is (theoretically) left to chance. Of course, planning helps us make sense of where we’re headed and how we’d like to get there. It can help us tackle our to-do lists and meet our goals. Planning can make it easier to collaborate with others and can give us the sense that we’ve got some handle on the chaos of life.

But as Erin Loechner and Sarah J. Bray have explained so well, over-planning can sometimes be the death of creativity, motivation, and inspiration.

When Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir in verse first appeared in 2011, I loved it immediately just for its title, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, which is itself a quotation from Thoreau. The timing of its publication felt particularly serendipitous to me, as I encountered it while trying to emerge from what had felt like a very long hibernation.

A brief glance at my calendar from September 2010 is enough to make my present self hyperventillate. Every single day of that month is planned down to fifteen-minute increments, with a few hours sometimes allotted for sleep. My calendars for the following six months, however, are mysteriously blank.

It shouldn’t have been so hard to realize that my life was bursting at the seams. Unfortunately, I was too busy to take the time to notice (or care), and it took a crisis to slow me down. In fact, a simple, quiet illness brought me to a full stop.

My memories of those next few months are dim, but I can call up most vividly the grief I felt as all the things (good and wonderful things, mostly—just too many of them) I had planned so well were pried from my sleepy hands by fate and loved ones.

For much of the time that I spent flat on my back, I thought I would mark my recovery by the moment my life (and my calendar) returned to what it had been. I thought I would know for sure that I was really well again when the pages of my life were filled to the edges. That moment never came, and it was not because I didn’t get well (I surely did). It was because I fell in love, in those months of quiet emptiness, with the margins.

While I was still mourning the bright and busy calendar that had been wiped clean, the things I had crowded out of the disappearing margins of my life began to trickle back in. After years of wishing for more hours in the day, I knew what it felt like to have more time than I could ever need. All of a sudden, there was space for curiosity and wonder and reflection. A few deep and heartfelt friendships finally had room to grow. In the midst of all that quiet, I began to hear the sound of my own voice again and to really listen. I also learned to receive help and love, even when I had very little to offer in return.

For all those months, I worried constantly about the fact that I couldn’t doing anything “productive.” Instead, I was mostly lying still while my body repaired itself and the quiet worked its strange magic on me. By the time I felt like myself again, I was a different self altogether—one who knows the joy of fullness and hard work and the equal value of guarding and loving and noticing what happens in the margins.

Healing: A Sense of Community

A new sense of community emerged this week in Boston. Last Monday we watched in fear as tragedy marred one of the most beautiful, treasured days of the year in our city. We held on through an anxiety-ridden week, hugging our friends a bit tighter and smiling warmly at strangers. Friday night closed with the end of a day-long manhunt and city-wide lock down. The city breathed a collective sigh as the suspect was caught. People ventured out into their neighborhoods, finally turning off the news.

This week, signs of strength are everywhere. Café signs show love for the city scribbled in chalk hearts, restaurants offered free meals to law enforcement personnel, and Syrians sent a message love through a painted sign---that was shared thousands and thousands of times on Facebook. The spirit of this city is still here, yet the questions of mourning and healing are only beginning to emerge:

As a community, how do we grieve? How do we heal?

Acts of violence, so close to our home affect us. The effect may be new or it may trigger old emotions. In the past week, I have watched those around me struggle with emotions spanning from indifference to shock to deep sadness. I urged my immediate community to be compassionate with the experience and allow yourself to be affected:

It is okay if you feel off this week. It is okay that you can’t concentrate or don’t want to sit in the library, even though you have so much to do. It is okay if you feel grief, or emotions you can’t identify, even though you don’t know anyone who was physically hurt or weren’t even at the event. It is also okay if you don’t feel anything. It is okay if this tragedy reminds you of other losses in your life. It is okay to miss people or moments that have nothing [on the surface] to do with what happened on Monday.

In consideration of healing, I return to stories. The world of grief and healing is full of stories. Stories that make our hearts ache and bring tears to our eyes. Stories that touch us deeply, resonating with our experiences, bring our losses closer to the surface, and in their own way, heal us. My own story of the Boston Marathon encapsulates one of my best memories: the spring, the sheer accomplishment of running 26.2 miles, and, which I did not know at the time, my last day with my father. In honor of that experience and the events of the week, this past Tuesday, I put on my running shoes and Red Sox shirt, and headed out the door into the spring air. What I needed to do was run, remember that joyful day, and spend time feeling through the grief that bubbled up out of the surface in the face of new tragedy.

Feeling, hurting, and all the other associated emotions are signs of life, signs of caring for one’s community. Be compassionate with yourself in this process. Do what feels right for you. Heal through allowing yourself to engage with the process. This is our first step as individuals that make up a truly wonderful community. As a community, we can soak in the love pouring from all corners of the world. And, within our responsibility to love these “corners” back, as individuals did by holding up a sign sending love back to Syria in Davis Square, we can reflect this sense of healing and hope.

The city I envision heals fear through love and community.

Fifty Shades of Yay

Dear Sibyl,

I have a wonderful husband of 10 years and we have a good sex life.  Often, I need a little help to get me in the mood, my choice is romance novels.  Is this normal?  Should my husband take offense?  He's never complained, but I just hope I'm not hurting his feelings.

Thank You,

Romance Reader

Dear Romance Reader,

You're in good company.  The Romance novel is the bestselling fiction genre, ever.  According to Romance Writers of America's 2011 Romance Book Consumer survey, slightly more than half of survey respondents live with a spouse or significant other.  Some studies say that women who read romance novels have sex twice as often as those who don't.  Others say that a high level of romance reading is correlated with happy monogamous relationships.  So, to answer your initial question, your penchant for a little erotica fantasy reading is not only normal, it may be even helping your marriage.

The fact that you are worried about your reading habits, despite the fact that you are one of the ladies having hot married sex after reading a chapter of your romance novel of choice, makes me think you have some shame around this predilection.  Well, head on over to smartbitchestrashybooks.com, where Sarah Wendell and Carly Tan, authors of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels, facilitate a thriving online community of fellow romance readers.  They’ll help you realize you’re not alone, and give you some great suggestions for new reads.

As for your second question, I have no idea if your husband’s feelings are hurt by your romance reading.  For that, you’ll have to ask him!  And I highly suggest that you do.  A conversation about how he feels about the paperbacks stacked on your nightstand could lead to a juicy discussion of the fantasies that most intrigue you.  You may find yourself living out a few of them, with your very own leading man!

My hope is that he does not feel threatened by your fantasies, and the fact that they are spurred by stories in romance novels, as it belies your thriving intellect and playful libido.  He should feel glad to have a partner that is inventive in her interest in all things sexual.

However, if he is threatened by it, it’s best the two of you are honest about those feelings, in order to work through them.  Perhaps you could spend a night reading him some of your favorite passages?  Next thing you know, he may be swapping books with you!  A whole world could open up for the two of you.  I hope it is one with lots of lace and fur-lined handcuffs.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Kayla Allen was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, which she left behind in her teens to cultivate a life of travel and bohemianism. During those years she held many jobs including Jagermeister girl, blackjack dealer, paid game-show contestant, dental imaging software consultant and legal secretary. She also played bass in a Los Angeles band called Thunderfuck, while studying flamenco, learning to fly trapeze, and honing her skills on the fiddle, but not all at the same time.  Along the way she was awarded a PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellowship.  As an artist-in-residence at Chateau La Napoule, in France, she participated with her fellow residents one drunken evening in a spontaneous dance party.  A handsome D’Artagnan lookalike, visiting another resident, saw Ms. Allen writhing on the floor in a pathetic attempt to breakdance. A long-distance courtship followed, and she now lives in Nice with her husband and three children. 

I have nurtured a huge inclination to read ever since I stole my sister’s Barbara Cartland novels at age ten, giving rise to prepubescent fantasies of a dramatic rescue from a life-threatening situation, followed by romantic sex. Although since Cartland never wrote sex scenes, my idea of romantic sex was vague. I could only glean ideas by watching the family poodle hump the couch.

Through my teen years I immersed myself in Russian and British classics, and adopted a stoic and melancholy demeanor, proving to the world I was full of angst, just like the characters I read about. In my mind, I was a prisoner in a Siberian labor camp, eating gruel and building ice roads, even though to everyone else I was just the blonde girl on the dance team.

In my quest to be taken seriously, and to eliminate any residual traces of my Cartlandian era, I continued reading literary fiction for years.  Chic-lit was deemed unworthy. I poo poo-ed anything less than a Man Booker finalist or Pulitzer prize winning novel.

But then I had children, and the time or ability to concentrate on reading disappeared. Just like that. I went from voracious reader to brainless mommy faster than you can say “episiotomy.”

I turned to memoirs. I could pick up someone else’s life, escape through their perspective, then leave it behind at the drop of a stinky diaper. When my identity was being slowly erased by my childrens’ needs, I could latch on to someone else’s for brief increments and feel alive through their experiences. At times, reading a stranger’s truth was preferable to my reality. (Two a.m. change of vomit-splattered sheets, anyone?)

So here’s a look at what sustained me, made me laugh, cry, and reminded me I had an identity outside of stained breast pads.

Everything is Going to be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour by Rachel Shukert High raunch meets travelogue as Shukert recounts winding her way through Europe fresh out of drama school. Packed with sex, booze, humor and hangovers, she also manages to include tips for emergency room visits in foreign countries.  Amidst all the deliciously sordid stories, she proves to be a great writer, mostly for her brilliant imagery and for keeping us hooked with a powerful, emotional undercurrent.

When a potential love interest tells Shukert, “You are a beautiful child,” she writes: If ten thousand chimpanzees injected with the cloned genetic material of Casanova and Sigmund Freud were gathered in a vast laboratory and chained to typewriters, with the voice of God reading my psychiatric records over the cosmic loudspeaker, in seventy years or more they could never come up with a line that would get my clothes off faster.

Such deft expression with an irreverence that speaks straight to my heart.

Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles and So-called Hospitality by Jacob Tomsky Tomsky worked his way up from valet parker to front desk manager in luxury hotels, first in New Orleans, then New York. His writing is casual, like a conversation you’d have with your bright, funny friend, and full of profanity, which this grumpy mommy found hugely appealing.  Co-workers are exalted and non-tipping customers are trounced upon with great indignation. But he never comes off as mean-spirited. Rather, he’s a keen observer of character, having dealt with his share of crazy hotel guests and odd, random crises.

The book is full of helpful hints. My personal favorites are to always lie about the minibar. Empty it and pretend like you had nothing. No one will ever contradict you. And to tip up front, before your front desk agent checks you in, which always ensures an upgrade.

Tomsky’s memoir made me nostalgic for my years in the service industry, mostly waitressing at trendy bars and restaurants in Los Angeles, and the life-saving camaraderie with co-workers that actually made dealing with assholes fun.

DRIVING THE SAUDIS: A Chauffeur’s Tale of the World’s Richest Princesses (plus their servants, nannies, and one royal hairdresser) by Jayne Amelia Larson The premise of this book was right up my alley; an out-of-work actress becomes a chauffeur and drives the female branch of a Saudi royal family during their 6-8 week stay in Beverly Hills. The desperate-for-money, taking insane jobs-to-get-by and hating-every-minute was familiar.  Larson is demeaned by her job requirements and the loss of her autonomy during the weeks she drives for the family.

But the unfamiliar part was most intriguing, for the view into Arab, Saudi culture. Larson created empathy for the gaggle of princesses, when they could’ve been completely non-empathetic. She became enough of a compassionate witness to see beyond the decadent shopping sprees and plastic surgery. She captures the essence of these women, from royalty to the servants, and renders them with compassion, trapped by circumstances beyond their control.

Even though Larson’s writing style is lackluster, the narrative is compelling enough to stick with, culminating in a final moment when we discover how much of a tip she’s rewarded at the end of the job. (Part of the impetus for Larson taking the job was the rumored tip, well into the thousands, for which the Saudis were known).

Garrison Keillor makes a guest appearance in the beautiful epilogue, a highlight of the book in which Larson shines.

MUST YOU GO?: My Life With Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser An epic love story beginning in 1975 when Antonia Fraser, biographer of Mary Queen of Scots, and Harold Pinter, Britain’s most famous playwright, met at a dinner party. Their affair was scandalous, they were married to others and had 7 children between them. The book manages to be both gossipy and highbrow, and distinctly captures the hip, literary circles of London from the ‘70s forward. Within that world, they were two creative forces that inspired each other. Lady Antonia put a very human, happy face on Pinter’s broody playwright image.

Lady Antonia is beautiful and admirable, even though at first glance I thought she’d wrecked her kids in her desire for true, passionate love. But she carefully disentangled herself from her first marriage and the kids seemed to thrive in their new arrangement.

Beyond all the fabulousness of their lives, it’s clear that Fraser and Pinter remained genuinely devoted to each other until his death, in 2008. Fortunately, their creative genius endures.

A Family Affair

Everybody has a different concept of family.  I was reminded of this after a recent trip to California where virtually our entire brood gathered to spend a long weekend.  As it turns out, the weekend was certainly longer for some of us than for others.  Even within the same core family unit, you will find members with vastly wide-ranging notions of connectedness as well as varying levels of tolerance for intimacy.  For my part, I find myself growing wistful for a time gone by, when we flew from all parts to be together for significant occasions with greater regularity.  In my admittedly rose-hued memories, we all managed to get to the beach for sunset and evenings ended congregated around the fire. What I find increasingly fascinating about being a part of a multi-generational family is how the gears are constantly shifting.  There are historical alliances that change in response to marriages and babies.  There also seem to be dynamics that are established so early and become so entrenched that no amount of maturity, softening of the years or costly therapy can deconstruct them.  There is great universality in the fact that we essentially become our adolescent selves in the presence of our parents and siblings.

The inner teenager is not always the most flattering version of yourself…mine engages in a confusing combination of acting out (often comically) and subverting feelings.  Still and all, my default position tends to be mediator and salve.   I just want everyone to get along and everything to be OK and everyone to love each other.  LIKE RIGHT NOW.  My official roles, then (according to the therapeutic community), fall into two categories: “Caretaker”, one who feels great responsibility for the emotional life of the family, and “Mascot”,one who uses comedy to distract from uncomfortable or dysfunctional situations.

There are times when these formative roles serve me well.  I have a highly attuned sense of empathy and I am occasionally entertaining at a party.  On the flip side, I can have poor boundaries and deny very real wounds.  Clinically speaking, the Caretaker is identified as being at higher risk for depression than other family members (it can be tough trying to make everyone happy) while the Mascot is often the person with the most healthy coping.  So, you see, it could really go either way for me.

Of course, now that I am a self-possessed adult, I could make different choices.  There are many people close to me who have no desire to endure the morass of feelings involved in dealing with their families.  It is often the subject of debate with dear friends---even with my husband---the ultimate costs and benefits of being an active member of an extended family.  I always land in the camp of “YES,” it is worth it.  What else is there?  What are the other options?  The other options seem to be cut-offs and estrangements.  At this age, with this amount of history, it is a take it all or leave it all kind of proposition.  While some maneuvering is possible within the relatively fixed role each of us occupies within a family, in due course the choice is to participate or not and to do so either kicking and screaming or enjoying the ride.

I have been accused of glossing over elements of the past when it comes to my family.  My ballast is a place where I consider my childhood happy---even the teenage years---and my family close.  I have unique touchstones with each member, and some relationships are based primarily in the past and while others continue to develop over time.  We have borne and inflicted our share of pain, but it generally pales in comparison to the real suffering of families where there is true neglect, abuse or impairment.  We have been largely spared of tragedy and our close calls have functioned to knit us together.  While I support the people I know who have separated from their clan, I feel crushingly and beautifully stuck with mine.  In fact, I am already dreaming up locales for next year’s reunion.  Just don’t tell my husband.

Lessons on working out...

Dearest Clara,

As the cold days of winter lift away, so do many of the layers that we became comfortable in.  The layers that keep us warm when the chill hits, but also the layers that provided just a little more room to hide under.  Maybe everyone doesn’t hide under them, but I do.  And as the weather gets warmer, I realize the extra layer isn’t always just in the clothes.  So in celebration of the more gorgeous days outside, and in anticipation of the layerless summer to come, this is when I get out and get moving.  Or at least I try to---the transition to a more active lifestyle isn’t always an easy one for me.  Here’s what gets me up and out the door:

• Just put the clothes on: Once you have your workout clothes on, you’ll feel like a clown if you don’t make at least some of use of them.  Get up and get them on, and everything else will fall into line.
• Make the time, figure out the money: The easiest thing to say is that you don’t have the time to work out.  Make it.  Figure out how to squeeze it in---walk to school or work, get off the computer earlier, take the stairs.  The second easiest thing to do is to blame it on money---new shoes, a gym membership,whatever is holding you back.  If you really need it, then you need to budget for it; but chances are, we look for things that we don’t need to make it easier to explain why we’re not doing something hard.
• Find something you enjoy:  Anything that is going to take up time has to be enjoyable to some degree.  With workouts, that can get confusing because the starting in part is sometimes less enjoyable, so we stop doing it altogether.  For me, I learned to love swimming.  I love that I’m not distracted by music and TV and sounds and people---I love the repetitive notion of swimming and that I can’t tell if others are looking at me---and it’s become some of my most valuable thinking time.  Something about the quiet of being underwater . . . But see what works for you, find at least one active thing that you enjoy, but don’t give up on trying new things.
• When in doubt, walk more: There are lots of fancy things that we can do to keep ourselves interested in working out.  And it’s good to give them a try and change things up, but chances are, a lot of our physical and mental needs could be met if we just walked a little more and sat a little less.  Do you  have the right balance?
• No matter how slow you might go, you’re still running laps around the person sitting on the couch: I saw that on poster recently and it made me tie my running shoes right back on.  Running isn’t my most favorite exercise, but I love its efficiency.  I ran a lot right before you came along to get better at it, and then never went back because of how slow I had become.  But this reminded me that my speed isn’t want really matters, it’s dedication to movement itself.
• You owe it to more than yourself: For a long time, I thought that working out and being active was just my business.  That it was for me to decide where and when.  And part of that is true---I can decide where and when, but the decision on whether to do it at all doesn’t impact only me anymore.  I want to be a good example for you . . . And I want to set myself up for the long run to be as healthy of a mother, daughter, wife, and hopefully grandmother one day.  Some things about our health will always be beyond our control, but for the things that are in our hands and our hands only, it’s a responsibility to take care of them.

All my love,

Mom

Just Say Yes

Usually I only work on one project at a time. But the freelancers I know who make a living at it work on multiple projects at once, and I want to learn to do that. When it comes to my social life, I’ve always been into saying ‘yes’ to lots of things and then figuring out how they all fit together, and I’m trying to extend that same confidence to art/illustration jobs. So, I’m working on a few different projects right now, and I think I like it.

I always like the beginnings of things (like fellow Gemini Don Draper), which can make follow-through a challenge. Self-help books have taught me that the best way to deal with a potentially self-destructive tendency is not to try and make it go away, but to find a way to make it work for you. So I think switching back and forth between projects is actually good for someone like me, because it means starting fresh again every couple of days. It also creates mini deadlines at the end of the day, which is helpful for the same reason--the only thing as exciting as starting something is finishing something!

Working on multiple projects concurrently seems to add up to just working more, period, which is good. I notice myself getting a little looser and stronger with my drawings. This helps me feel more motivated, too. I am starting to see potential, rather than feeling my I’ve plateaued. I’m still not drawing enough to be as strong as I could be, but I am seeing that I can improve, and that is really exciting me.

Below are some images of bits and pieces of different projects I’m working on now. I hope you will enjoy the medley [click to see full image].

[gallery link="file" order="DESC" orderby="title"]

For other freelancers: How many projects do you take on at one time? How have you learned to manage your time?

The Dove Campaign, or Why I Don't Trust Inspiring Messages

In the past week, somewhere between eight and ninety of my Facebook friends posted this video. And then there was the backlash, including this awesome blog post. At the risk of reiterating what has already been said: embedded in this empowering message of confident womanhood is a continued premium on beauty, for one thing—a premium that only seems to important for the female gender—and unexamined assumptions about normative beauty traits, for another. (Most of the women participating are white, blond, and blue-eyed. Most of the “positive” descriptors include the word “thin.”)

These criticisms I unquestioningly agree with—but there’s an ambivalence. Because, as a woman raised on and indoctrinated with such premiums on beauty and complacency about normative beauty traits—as someone who occasionally suffers severe crises of confidence re:said beauty traits-- I also fully understand the impact this message has. Maybe it’s a disjuncture between my intellectual and emotional selves. Or maybe the two are inextricably intertwined.

It’s the emotional response that interests me. Many women reported getting teary while watching this video. Obviously, it strikes a chord. But why? Because it so intensely matters to us what other people think of our face? Because it validates a deep-seated desire to believe that our general attractiveness quotient is between 1.5 and 2 points higher than what we rate ourselves looking in the mirror each day? (Or worse, looking at photographs? It’s the photographs that get you. Forreals.)

I’m not trying to make fun. Because I totally get it. But I think it’s worth questioning: what exactly are we crying about?

What it makes me think of is the fallibility of emotional responses. The way that a strong emotional response tends to project a validity on its trigger. Based on this Dove commercial and its response, I propose an examination of why things like this make us so emotional, rather than taking our emotional response to be proof of the commercial’s poignancy. What nerve does this touch, or heartstring does this . . . pluck? (What a terrible metaphor. I apologize.)

What this, in turn, makes me think of—and forgive me if this seems like a huge digression about horrible human beings—is a particularly hyperdramatic yet affecting John Quinones ABC News special. It was one of his “What Would You Do?” hidden camera pieces, in which he set up some actors to play a white couple, their college age daughter, and the black boyfriend she is introducing them to, and had them enact a very loud, non-PC conversation in a Utah restaurant. The gist of it is that the white father is quite vocally disapproving of the relationship, spewing forth a number of racist statements (“How did you get into my daughter’s school? Basketball scholarship?”), while the hidden cameras wait to see if anyone will intervene.

The reaction that really stuck with me was that of a middle-aged woman sitting nearby, when John Quinones questions her about what she just overheard. Tears streaming down her cheeks, a saintly, long-suffering expression on her face, she laments the plight of this beautiful young girl who is wasting her time with (as a nearby, more vocally racist old woman puts it) "that." (Clearly this special produced its own visceral emotional response in me as viewer. But that's another story.) The woman recounts talking about this "issue" with her own daughter, and seems to acknowledge, in a small way, that it’s wrong to be against interracial couples—but she can’t help how she feels, can she?

You could see it on her tear-streaked, pitiful face. She was practically heartbroken.

For me, this is proof of the absolute unreliability of visceral emotional response. We’re moved, we’re touched, we’re hurt, we’re offended, but this in and of itself means nothing. It’s not just the what, but the why—why does it make us feel this way? Is it really valid?

OK. Huge, barely relevant digression over. (And don't think that I'm comparing the women who watch/participated in this commercial to dumb old racists! It's just my way of thinking through the emotional versus the intellectual responses to issues of self and other.)

To be clear, emotion certainly serves a function in our notions of self, society, morality, and politics—I’m not saying we should be robots. But, to misquote Socrates, the unexamined emotion is not worth having. Our gut responses aren't always the best responses; trusting them keeps us from critically engaging with the thing we are responding to. And I say: if we really pondered why women seeing their faces drawn better when described by a random stranger than when they themselves described it made us, well, emotional, then maybe the underlying problem would become clearer.

An Adopted Dad

By Cindy WaiteRead the first piece in Cindy's series here. 

I never planned out my wedding. I didn’t imagine the decorations, or the finger foods, or even my dress. I told my family, defiantly, that I’d wear jeans and a sweatshirt on my wedding day because, “Ew, dresses.” I made the sour milk face you’re envisioning. Then I did back flips on my mom’s bed, made mud cakes in the backyard, and fell asleep reading, a flashlight hidden under my covers. I was maybe a strange child.

I always said I wanted a chocolate cake on my wedding day.

“No, honey, that’s what the groom has. The bride’s cake is white,” My mom impatiently told me, again. I made my sour milk face so contorted I might have passed out from disgust.

I can see her now, my Mom, at our scratched wooden kitchen table, the plastic covering pulling over the edge, the kitchen garbage pail at her feet, a Russet potato in one hand and a peeler in the other. She would have looked up at me without missing a beat with the potato.

“Why can’t I have a chocolate cake, too? Who said only boys can have them? I’m going to have a chocolate cake.”

It made all the women around me laugh whenever I said things about my chocolate cake and jeans wedding, so untraditional was I, so my cake grew in brown, sugary divinity each time the conversation arose.

“It’ll be a BIG chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, covered in M&Ms, with chocolate sprinkles on top of that.”

Then I bested myself, “It’ll be a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, covered in M&Ms and sprinkles on top.”

I didn’t spend my young years daydreaming about my nuptials, but I did spend a lot of time wondering who would walk me down the aisle.

I call Rob, my mom’s best friend, “Adopted Dad.” He spoils me. He got me my first perfume, “Romance” by Ralph Lauren, for my birthday because I smelled it in a magazine and liked it. I liked the name as much as the scent.

I’m moderately more graceful than a baby giraffe, only slightly lighter on my feet than Shrek. I smelled Ralph Lauren’s newest scent when I peeled back the bulky page in Seventeen, and I saw myself transform from my not-quite-or-at-all-grown-into-myself body to a romantic heroine starring in my own meet-cute love story. I’d be sophisticated. I’d be urbane, a word so sophisticated, saying it put me in a new class.

Adopted Dad is divorced. He’ll be happily remarried in a few years, when I’m 17 or 18. He’ll stop being Adopted Dad then, but I’ll hold on to the title for keepsakes. Divorced Dad can be a Dad to me; he has room and time in his life to adopt me into it.

Adopted Dad lets me drive. He’s okay with me behind the wheel, guiding me from the passenger seat. He doesn’t grip the door handle and dashboard until his knuckles turn white---that’s Mom’s job, and she should get a pay raise she’s so excellent at it.

I’m driving out to Six Flags with Adopted Dad and his 10-year-old son, my babysitting charge. Adopted Dad took the day off, and he handed me the keys. I didn’t know my palms could produce sweat so fast, but those keys felt like they were dipped in oil they were so slippery. I drove through Newnan straight on to 85 North, headed for Atlanta.

I’m on the interstate, driving through Spaghetti Junction---six, eight, fifteen lanes twisted like noodles, my heart racing with nerves in the snaking, speeding traffic. This is my opportunity to prove my maturity.

I’m 16, but I swear it’s more like 20-something because that’s what everyone says. I’ve grown up in single parent years---that’s 1.5 for every 1 normal kid year. I sort of get how dogs feel, passing everyone by.

Rob tells me, “It’s okay to speed,” as matter-of-factly as though he’d said, “There are cars on the road right now.” I stare at him out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision stretched as I also try to keep both eyes straight ahead, my hands at 10:00 and 2:00 and my heart from fluttering straight out of my chest onto the console.

“If you have the money to pay for a ticket, then you can take your chances exceeding the speed limit,” he continues. “You can choose to break the rules if you know the consequences and accept them.”

I feel immensely loved in this moment.

This is real dad advice. This is a life lesson that seems absurd on the surface---one a Mom would yell about, eyes bulging out of her head, demanding to know what on earth he was thinking telling a 16-year-old something so irresponsible. But Dad would know that he has a smart daughter, one with a head on her shoulders that got it, that gets him, that will be a more responsible driver and person because now she’s empowered with choice and the weight of responsibility.

I’m choking up because he said this and I’m imagining that scene, and a car cuts in front of me, and my reflexes jerk the wheel enough for us all to notice, but Adopted Dad doesn’t critique. And I’m calming down now because I can do this.

Men bonded with Chris mostly, growing up. What’s a boy without a dad? They went fishing and hunting, and he learned to tie knots and change a car tire, all while I played beneath the towering oak tree in the front yard. Men lent me a lap to crawl on when I was little and reassuring, big hugs as I aged. Men taught Chris and comforted me.

But Rob took me on busy Atlanta interstates and taught me to trust my gut. He taught me the tools of the Dad trade---lecturing me on too much time spent online talking to boys and wondering if I’d like to learn how to change a tire, after all.

I still wear Ralph Lauren’s Romance. I still think of Adopted Dad when I spritz it, pushing my shoulders back and my head high and entering the mist as any urbane woman might do.

I put Adopted Dad in the “maybe” column to walk me down the aisle.

A Fatherless Girl

By Cyndi Waite

My mom runs her hand softly along my cheek, like moms do with their babies. Maybe I asked the question, "Who is my dad?" or "Where is my dad?" or maybe she preempts it. She strokes my cheek again and smiles at me.

“My beautiful girl," I imagine her saying it in the wonder-filled way she still says it today. "My beautiful girl, your daddy was a good man, but he is very sick."

This refrain is so palpable and entwined in my childhood, I know the words like a nursery rhyme whose repetition tattooed it on my memory. But there’s not a nursery rhyme for my story.

I was born in Hollywood, a fact that fills me with undue glee. I was a kid who had "a lot of personality," a euphemism for having been histrionic. I wanted to be an actress, a screenwriter, but always, I dreamed of being a Los Angeles Resident.

Because what I leave out is the "Florida" part. I'm from Hollywood, Florida, home of the Cuban and land of the retirees. It’s a far cry from the iconic “Hollywood” sign and yet, it’s true, I’m from Hollywood.

We lived in an apartment building. I can see the outline of it, and I wonder if that's my earliest memory shining through or if I've re-created a memory from pictures. It had a giant, humongous, can't-see-the-end-of-it-can't-touch-the-bottom-of-it pool. We lived there until I was three.

Mom has always been a fish, happiest near the water and stressed, searching for air away from it. Mom's angry? Let's run her a bath. Mom has to get away from work? Let's pack a bag of towels and ham sandwiches and find the nearest lake. Water is Mom's Valium.

Mom's love of the water seeped into Chris and me in the womb; pregnancy didn't keep her from floating weekends away. We came out with our arms failing in freestyle. Outside her belly, we split our time the way she had done while we were in it: between the pool and the beach. I learned to walk in the sand.

***

Mom and Chris hold my hand as we walk to the water, waves lapping my feet and calves and thighs and stomach. I’m pink and round---a perfect Gerber baby, squealing with delight at the touch of the cool south Atlantic waters (that are somehow, someway perfect, while northern Atlantic beaches are drab, the water the color of the gray sand. It’s a mystery I’ve never solved).

Chris, four years older than me, maybe six or seven, swims his way away from Mom and me. He probably travels three feet, but I swear it’s 10 feet---half a football field, even. Mom holds me over her head, and teases me, “I’m going to do it! I’m going to throw you!” and her threats aren’t threats at all but promises. And she tosses me through the air, and I’m soaring what feels like stories above the water shimmering below, and I land, laughing, in my brother’s open arms. They throw me like a football, calling plays, “Go left!” I was a precursor to my brother’s glory days on the football field, a human ball. I wonder if that’s where he learned a perfect spiral.

***

We move from Hollywood that same year, when I’m three. I still suck on a pacifier, a fact that embarrasses and endears me now---a childhood in tact, still so innocent it maybe seemed stalled, in slow motion, behind. Precocious and clever, my brother knows my sun rises and shines with him. Where he goes, I go. What he does, I try to do. Sometimes he uses his powers for good, and sometimes he uses them for evil. The line is always blurry.

We pack up the family Chevy S-10 and move to Georgia.

We say goodbye to our family and friends, and Mom says it’s time for an adventure. She drives stick shift in the small three-seater pickup truck. My legs swing around it; it's hard for her to switch gears sometimes, and I talk nonstop, except when I'm sucking on my pacifier.

She got lost, often, on that long drive. I asked a dozen times if we were lost, and she always said, “We’re not lost, we’re finding a new way," just like she says today. Sometimes I ask her when we're standing still to hear those guiding words.

Hours into the drive, Chris pipes up. “I dare you to throw your pacifier out the window.”

I eye him cautiously; at three, going on four, I’m already stubborn and incapable of turning down a challenge.

“I double-dog dare you. I bet you won’t do it.” The taunts keep coming.

I pull my pacifier out of my mouth, and he rolls down the window, and Mom intervenes.

“If you throw it out the window, I won’t get you another one,” she warns.

Chris smirks. “I triple-dog dare you.”

I can’t take it anymore, and I throw it out, watch the wind whip it, bounce it off the side of the truck and fall onto the hot asphalt. It’s gone. It’s really gone.

I start to cry.

“I love you, but I told you if you threw it out, I wouldn’t get you another one,” Mom reminds me.

Chris looks at me, pride in his eyes. “You’re a big kid now.”

I cry all night, furious and unable to sleep. Mom doesn’t buy me a new pacifier.

The next morning, I’m calm and grown up when we pull into Carl’s driveway.

Ready to Go

By Rebecca D. Martin "There was a great tree---a huge poplar with vast limbs---visible through my window even as I lay in bed. I loved it, and was anxious about it. It had been savagely mutilated some years before, but had gallantly grown new limbs - though of course not with the unblemished grace of its former natural self; and now a foolish neighbour was agitating to have it felled." ~J.R.R. Tolkien, Collected Letters

The big front yard maple finally came down today. All the branches had been taken off last November. In absence of any friends who could manage the substantial trunk with a mere chain saw, the official tree men returned today and took that away, too.

The baby and I watched through the gable window as the two fellows alternated at the base: chain sawing, axing, tossing wedges of wood aside. Saw, axe, toss. I expected this to go on all around the perimeter of the tree for the next hour, slow but sure. But just as the baby was losing interest in favor of the cord pull on the window blind, the unexpected happened. The entire, enormous ten foot trunk creaked and groaned. The men did some circling and pushing. Then a sharp crack, and 72 years-worth of sprouting, spreading, anchoring, and reaching fell into the road with a shuddering thump that set our dog a-barking.

Last fall, I'd mourned as the tree branches came down: no more green leaves dancing at the upstairs window; that lovely play of sunlight and shadow shifting across the downstairs living room---gone. Not to mention the temperature protection during our unairconditioned summers. The loss felt inordinately tragic, both physically and emotionally. But I thought all my sorrow had gone with the limbs. The stripped-down body left standing in the yard was merely a sad reminder, not to mention an eyesore---a ten foot high one. I was more than ready for it to go.

Imagine my surprise at the tears that sprang up this morning as the tree trunk fell, so suddenly, so heavily, down. It seemed so, so . . . irreverent. It seemed wrong. There lay the tree, bottom-up, all its striated glory exposed for the world to see. Suddenly, the blossoming circles amassed over three quarters of a century, the grey bark running its length in stripes and curves, were a surpassing beauty. The tree men seemed not to notice. They swung their axes and tossed the tree in bits and pieces into the back of their flatbed. They took a break and lit cigarettes. For them, this was any day, any tree, any job.

J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, "I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals." This morning, as the tree pitched over, I could hear the clanging and banging of Saruman's machinery, as it was so explicitly interpreted in the movies, and the ground-shaking thud at each felled tree. The neighbor who frowned and made a wide berth around our yard this morning on her daily dog walk seemed to channel Tolkien's disappointment at me. "Those trees were my friends!" Darn that movie.

Still, I knew it was just a tree. I know it is just a tree. And it was dying, after all. These Norway Maples were planted when our three neighborhood streets were first developed, back in the 1940’s, and none of the trees are going to last much longer. Each yard got two maple trees, in fact, and a good third of them have come down already. More than half of the ones left are dying. Windblown and ice-laden limbs fall into the streets where cars park and children on bikes race by. The resident tree expert says that, actually, there's only one healthy maple left, back in a corner lot. He speculates about environmental incompatibility. Others have suggested bugs or disease. Whatever the root cause, our particular tree was sick, and it was time for it to go.

But there's something to be said for putting in a lifetime’s work toward such a strong and quiet beauty. It doesn't seem like something so long-lived should go as easily as this fifteen minutes of sawing and chopping have done. It seems, for a moment, that the tree should get something better than a cigarette break in memorium.

But really, there is nothing that needs be done for the tree, or that could be done, except what we did. Instead, I know what I will do. As I watched this morning, I resolved to plant another. We'll do our research this time. We've been told something called the Black Oak does well in these parts. I also have a particular soft spot for Dogwoods. Yes, we'll start another tree in this one’s place, and make our own contribution to this tiny patch of land and its future, and to the neighborhood it belongs to.

And then we'll get on with our day. With all respect to the dog-walking neighbor, and to Tolkien, and to my own sappy emotions, it was only a tree, after all. And it was ready to go.

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.

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.

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?

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy

Dear Sybil,

What is twisting my gut is what is also twisting the gut of the nation. My issue is that I am so very, very sensitive to human-caused tragedies, so much so that even a headline can send me toward panic-attack-ville. I've dealt with this by avoiding the news in general (my husband keeps me up to date on disturbing events using gentler wording buffered on either end with a hug) but I still want to be in the know.

Also, avoiding Facebook is much more difficult than avoiding the news; and so I see articles that friends post that I shouldn't click but sometimes do. I am repulsed, deeply saddened and deeply scared by tragedy, but also curious about how terrible things happen (and how I can avoid raising a child that would act in those terrible ways.)

How can I honor my tender self but still stay informed and educated?  Maybe there are others in the same boat that would benefit from some words of wisdom!

Thank you,

Tender-oni

Dear Tender-oni,

When a tragedy of this magnitude rocks our nation, every sentient person feels it in some way.  It sounds like you have the beautiful yet difficult experience of being someone extra attuned to the fragility of life, which means you need to take even more care to be kind to yourself and others in the wake of the Boston bombings.

Hearing tragic news is really unsettling, and it takes us out of our bodies.  The most important thing to do is to get grounded, connect yourself to the earth, and back in your corporeal being.  Wherever you are right now, feel your feet on the floor beneath you.  Imagine there is a connection between the soles of your feet down to the core of the earth, and that a vibration of light is running up through you, lengthening your spine out through the crown of your head.  Put your hands on your thighs, and press.  Then place your hands on your belly and breathe deeply, in and out, until you can feel your breath steadying, and you feel connected to all your limbs from your center.

Now that you are grounded, go ahead and let yourself feel whatever you are feeling.  If you're sad and need to cry, let the tears roll down.  If you are angry and need to punch a pillow, or yell into a cup, do that.  If you are scared and need to call your loved ones, please do.  Let them know you love them and you need them right now.

It is okay to try to get the truth about what happened, to allow your brain to make as much sense as possible of such mind-boggling violence.  However, with all the ways of receiving news now available to us, choose wisely.  First of all, avoid visual and aural news.  Receive your facts in words, in the form of complete sentences.  It is impossible to un-see images of bodies mangled, and to un-hear screams and cries.  News that has already been filtered through the brains of professionals into sentences are designed to inform you in the least traumatizing way possible.  Therefore, if you must follow the news, read it in article form, and don’t sign up to be notified every time events unfold---be as in charge as possible of when/how you receive the latest updates.

Don’t be afraid to reach out for professional help if you are indeed having panic attack symptoms.  Call your therapist, or if you don’t have one, contact Disaster Distress, a program of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Support Administration: http://disasterdistress.samhsa.gov/  You can call 1-800-985-5990 toll-free to talk with a crisis counselor, who can help you deal with the normal reactions to such troubling events.  There is nothing wrong with you if you are having triggering responses to such horrifying acts---it just means you are human.

Being human sometimes means being scared, but it also means being able to love.  Do something today that makes you feel really alive, and connects you to the love in your life, and the kindness of humans.  You have to counterbalance the horror with reminders that we are all held together with heartstrings.  This may be as small as creating some art to immerse yourself in beauty, or as large as volunteering to help others even more in need than you are.

I don’t know how long it will take, or what will transpire before we get there, but love will win.  I have had too many wonderful experiences with humans to discount them in the face of tragedy and say “people are terrible.”  I don’t believe that.  Some people are sick and need help and love, so that they can see how alike we all really are, and that there is something of value in each of us.

There will come a day that we will all look in one another’s eyes and see our own spark staring back at us.  In order to make this vision a reality, to end violence everywhere, we have to let the love we hold in our hearts wash over all we come into contact with, until it is a tidal wave, consuming the fear and leaving us ashore at last.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

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

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

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)