White privilege weightlifting

Grunting children are pretty funny.  I've taken my boys, age 2 and 7, down to the weight room.  Not as spotters, but just to keep an eye on them while I pound out the day’s stress on some cast iron.  It’s good for them to see a mother lifting weights instead of kitchen pans.

 

They fight over who can use the 5 lbs and who can manage the 10s.  They boast.  They strut.  They drop barbells on their toes and wince and whimper and then pretend it never happened.  Not so different from the grown-ups at the gym: preening in mirrors, absorbed with counting reps, taking themselves very seriously.

They gather around me and marvel at my strength as I bench the equivalent of their bodies.  They smooch my lips and giggle every time I come down from a sit-up.  They play between my legs as I squat and lunge.  Weight-lifting with small children is not for the impatient.  The reward?  I feel like Nike, triumphant and fertile.   The Greek goddess, not the shoe brand. 

Once we land in the kitchen for some ice-water and snacks, my eldest starts complaining that all the other boys in his class have bigger muscles than him.  He vows to catch up.  His classmate, whom I’ll call Jamie, has the biggest, he proclaims.  Jamie, it turns out, can lift “30 times” what he can.  Teasingly, I remark,

“Wow.  Jamie sounds like a superhero.  Are you sure he’s not a superhero?”

My son stares at me incredulously.

“Mum, Jamie can’t be a superhero.  He’s brown.  There’s no brown superheroes.”

Now it’s my turn to stare, shocked.  The ice cracks in my glass.  My son tries to fill in the silence by explaining his seven-year-old interpretation of the world the best he can.

“Mum, you know Jamie.  Jamie’s skin is dark.  You know, his skin is sort of that brown color.  Superheroes don’t look like that.  Batman, Robin, Spiderman, that badguy girl that’s like a cat, Superman, Ironman, they look like us.”

He starts rattling off all the superheroes he can think of.  I’m still in shock.  We don’t really watch superhero movies or play superhero video games at home, so he’s passively absorbed this from school, posters, TV commercials, wherever his little eyes and ears might have been when I wasn’t there to point out the gender biases or racial inequalities, or worse, when I wasn't even paying attention to them.  My librarian brain is on fire trying to name a black or Latino superhero he would recognize and I’m drawing a blank.  I’m ashamed to admit in that moment I can’t think of a single one.  I know they exist, but none of them have the staying power of Batman or Wonder Woman in the flawed storeroom of my mind.

How do I make good on this example of passive racism to my young children without diving into the entire sordid history of our prejudicial Hollywood and comic book culture; without making excuses for white dudes who draw comic heroes that they wish they could look like and comic heroines they wish they could bed?  There is no way I can comfortably explain black exploitation to a child his age.  But this isn't about my comfort.  How do I tell my innocent kids that the world isn’t fair and that even though Jamie has the best muscles in the class the media doesn’t celebrate his likeness?  There may be the occasional minority superhero character that pops up here and there, but they are rarely the star, the hero, the guy all the other little boys want to be when they grow up.  I realize for the first time how hard it must be to be Jamie in a classroom full of white kids.  In a world full of white superheroes.  

The whole episode makes me profoundly sad.  I vow to search out minority superheroes portrayed in a flattering light.  It sounds as daunting as finding well-rounded female supers that aren’t reduced to eye-candy or damsels in distress.  My first stop is to remind him of Frozone in the Incredibles, a movie he loves. 

What are your suggestions of comics and movies with minority heroes for an elementary audience?  What can we do to change this, so Jamie can see himself in the heroes our culture puts on its screens?

On labels and learning...

I took a potential student on a tour around the college yesterday and she confessed that although she already had an art practice and a studio space she was looking for something more culturally validating, more "real."  She admitted: "I just want that piece of paper that says I am an artist."

Oh honey.

I had to smile and nod and talk about networking and professional development and what a great entrepreneurship program we have (and we do!) because my job is to get butts in the door and tuition accounts paid.  But here is what I really wanted to tell her:

Pieces of paper don't mean anything.  They are symbols.  Metaphors.  It takes a lot of work to get them (trust me, I've got lots of first-hand experience), but there is no school or government or authority or single other person on the planet who can tell you who you are.  It is the effort, the practice, that is important.  Going to the doctor for your annual check-up and a clean bill of health doesn't make you healthy; how you feel in your body and what it can do for you is a better marker of dis-ease or barometer of fitness.  Having a shrink tell you that you're sane doesn't make one lick of difference if you feel (or act) crazy.  Practicing yoga makes you a yogi, not however many teacher trainings you've accomplished or gurus you've followed around the Indian countryside.  Do you run?  Even short distances?  And then complain about it?  You can still be "a runner."  No gazelle legs required.  If you heal people, you are a healer, whether you have an MD after your name or not.  And likewise, an artist is someone who makes art.  That is all.  You get to decide this.  You are in control of your life, not them.

A writer writes.  There are no prerequisites or years of suffering and starvation and rejection you must endure in order to wear that badge with pride.  Do you play guitar alone in your basement in front of your cats?  Then you are a musician.  Do you love something or someone?  Then you are a lover.  Do you have human DNA?  No matter your sins or your disabilities, you are human and capable of humanity.  That's the most frustrating thing about sociopaths, sometimes they can just be so damn nice.  People are messy things, aren't they?  Sometimes our labels, our metaphors, our masks, our costumes, our customs, they conflict.

Look, someone may have all the official credentials in the world, but without the energy to practice, without the life force of creativity and their soul's need to give, it will be meaningless.   And I don't believe someone else has the authority to look at your life and say, "Here, this is the dividing line: if you do this and this and this you are an artist but if you don't quite do that enough, you aren't."

Pardon me, but screw that judgmental bullshit.  To borrow an idea from Thomas Moore (the modern therapist and monk, not Sir Thomas More, the Renaissance humanist), museums are more like rooms for the dead than James Joyce's famous "museyrooms" (rooms for the Muses).  All that art sitting around made by dead people isn't like the living breathing awesome creativity sitting inside your very heart beating at this exact secon
d just waiting to burst out.  In the immortal words of Martha Graham: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."

This life force doesn't need a label, and as its caretaker, you can call it whatever you want.  Don't let someone else tell you who you are.  And if you don't know who you are, look at what you love, look at where you put your time, look at what you practice.

You want to be someone who does something?  Do it.  And then do it again.  And again.  And what if no one notices?  Impossible.  You show up for life every day and do the thing you do and someone will notice.  Maybe not in the way you want.  Maybe not at the time you want.  Maybe not with the movie cameras and coffers of coin and parades in your honor.  But that won't matter anyway, because you are doing what you love.  And that, my new friend, is a life worth living.

More on doppelgangers

As I said in my post the other day, sometimes I come across heroines (or villains!) in the media that remind me of myself (or remind other people of me):

But today I found some real life inspiration:

 Enjoy!

The thinking woman's guide to conflict

I have often been accused of being contrary, argumentative, obstinate, and an "exactitude" (which according to the dictionary is "the quality or state of being accurate or correct").  I couldn't agree more!  Wait, is that out of character?  Maybe I'm just being contrary?

I love to play with ideas, rock them about in my palm like dice, throw them on the table, see where they land and try it again.  I live by the Voltairian (or at least, this was attributed to Voltaire and never proved) ideal of wanting to hear people express themselves, even if I disagree with them, and being willing to defend their right to those opinions, even while I squash them as foolish or erudite!  What fun!  What madness the human ego that tries to make itself the thing that it expresses!  Let us pull this apart and expose our ridiculous underbellies: our fears, our attachments, our magical thinking.

After thirty-two years of pissing people off or sending them running for the hills, I've accepted I'm a bit of a Jordan (thanks Brent Curtis, for finding my doppelganger):

"I'm 19 and I'm brilliant and I'm hyperkinetic so guys are a little afraid and if I'd stop to think about it I'd be upset."

Maybe this isn't such a bad thing.  I know I can appear aggressive and overwhelming to the conflict-adverse (friendship-sweater, anyone?), but aggression is by its definition the pursuing of aims at the expense of other people's rights and freedom.  I would like to think I am more assertive than aggressive (though I have, I'm embarrassed to admit, kept on talking to people through bathroom doors or followed them into washrooms - see this clip for a perfect example), not because I'm a boundary-bashing-rights-violating-monster (I hope!) but because I am completely unaware of the fact (when I'm caught up in a thought-experiment) that other people's bodily needs (and need for privacy) trump intelligent and meaningful idea-sharing!  My friend Julia, bless her, calls this being "aggressively helpful."  My mum just tells me to "give her five minutes of peace" and then promises to let me continue my diatribe.  Now that I have two boys who try to sit on my lap while I urinate and follow me everywhere while chattering incessantly, I totally and blissfully understand.  Good debates can, and sometimes should be, interrupted.  I've gotten better at being patient.  I can now wait almost ten minutes without talking.  It gives me time to refine my argument and make it better so when they emerge I can be triumphant!  Hurrah! 

All is not lost!  New research is leading me to believe that there may be a method to my madness.  Willful ignorance (pretending not to know that which you know because you don't want to do anything about it) has always driven me mad (especially when I engage in it myself).  Today I watched Dare to Disagree, this excellent TedTalk by Margaret Heffernan, in which she argues that "openness alone can't drive change"; that thinking aloud together (even purposefully looking for defects in one another's arguments which I have always been told is "too critical" of me) is actually creative, problem-solving, and necessary.  There is a distinct difference between "stirring the shit-pot" just because you are bored and/or attached to discord and being actively and acutely aware of the ramifications of your hypothesis and sharing it anyway. Whistle-blowers and change agents are often seen as "crazy" or anti-authoritarian but it doesn't do us any favors to surround ourselves with partners/friends/colleagues who are echo-chambers for our own beliefs, values, and opinions.  

This isn't saying we should marry an atheist if we are a born-again Christian and expect it to work out, it is saying that we may LEARN something through our failure to co-exist.  And that is the fascinating thing about life: learning, which seems to me to be intricately intertwined with conflict.  When we all "just get along" we may feel safe but we may also be perpetuating horrible deeds in our "groupthink" mentality (Holocaust, anyone?).

"The truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it."  ~ Margaret Heffernan.

Here's to trying!  May I have the humility to have my ideas and opinions tossed about like cannon fodder without being attached to them as piece of my soul.  May I learn how to engage people's intellects without making them feel as if I am attacking their person-hood or invading their space uninvited.  May I develop the skills, habit, talent and moral courage to be a better truth teller, and seeker, than I am at present.  And may I have immense gratitude for the lovely people in my life who are willing to engage in this quest with me!

New Blog: Teen Autodidact

Those of you who follow my blog: Autodidact Attack! may be interested in knowing I created a sister blog to review young adult books and discuss adolescent development, which is not only what I study at school and work amid all day, but also a passion of mine. Happy reading!

http://teenautodidact.blogspot.ca/

Autodidacts live in the library...in fact, sometimes we even work there!

I stumbled upon this sweet little blog post praising autodidacts from The Denver Public Library and thought I would share: http://denverlibrary.org/blog/autodidacts-walk-among-us

Here's a great snippet: "Life experience, observation, and study are primary tools for autodidacts. And the Library is the epicenter of many of their lives."

Hug your favorite autodidact today (or if they are touch-adverse, ask them about something they are passionate about!).

I am not that smart, this is just easy

I wish every child could be lucky enough to learn basic sewing like I did (thanks Nanny!).  Tonight I decided I wanted a new top to wear to work tomorrow,  Something breezy and cozy and sleeveless to go under a cardie.  Fact: Librarians wear a lot of cardies.

Sorry for the trashy gray bra underneath, but everything else was in the wash and it was what I had on, but you get the idea...

Just add a cardie and you are ready to go!

Let me say off the bat, this is not a couture garment.  There are no French seams.  I didn't even use a serger.  But for around 6 dollars, about 20 minutes of my time and a perfect fit, this is way better than any sweatshop shirt you are going to find at Walmart.  

If you didn’t learn to sew as a kid it is not too late!  All you need is a sewing machine, a ballpoint needle, some thread, about 1/2 - 3/4 metre of knit fabric (depending on how big or small you are) and some pins!

Take your fabric and fold it in half.  Put a sleeveless top you already have that fits perfectly on top.  Cut around the edges, leaving about 1/2" of extra on the sides and neck for seam allowance.  Now you have two shirt-like shapes, a back and a front.  Turn them so the right sides of the fabric are facing.  Pin the sides of the torso together.  Sew up both sides of the torso using a straight stretch stitch on your machine.  Fiddle around with the neck and cut it in any shape you like (I added a cowl) and sew to close up as much as you want.  Ta-da.  You are done.  Seriously.  Well, turn it right-side out and try it on.  Now you are done.  No need to make hems on the bottom, neck or armholes, unless you have lots of time (I don't) or are feeling ambitious (nope, pretty lazy here!).

See?  Easy!

Safe Spaces

Today I have been thinking a lot about safe spaces.  Places where I feel most like myself.  Or the person I most want to be, my highest self.  Places where that simmering, shaking quiver of anxiety that holds my chest tight and my breath shallow recedes.  Places that feel like home.

Even though I have the tendency to be quite extroverted, most of my safe spaces involve being alone, or with other people only on the periphery: bookstores, libraries, hiking trails, lonely beaches.  I love being in empty yoga or dance studios or curled up in a sunny porch, reading or knitting.  I love lying in a field of grasses staring up at the sky, or lying on my living room floor listening to records, or lying in a snowbank at night, staring at the stars.  I'm not religious, but I love being alone in giant, ancient, echoing cathedrals and cloisters, zendos, shrines.  It is the quiet I crave, not the doctrine.

I feel very calm around plants, digging in the dirt, riding a tractor, stacking hay in a loft.  I like animals but their unpredictability makes me nervous.  I'm more at home in an empty barn, when everyone's out to pasture and I'm shoveling shit.  I often feel the same about human animals.  I watch them with intense fascination, observing herd patterns and mothering odd ducks and spindly runts; but I'd rather deal with their messes (perhaps more abstractly!) than be in their constant company.

I relax in an art studio, in front of a typer and a blank page, or a sewing machine, as long as what I'm doing isn't perceived as work and there are no deadlines.

A wall of books and a comfy chair and nothing else to do but drink a cup of hot tea is heaven.

I love sitting up high in trees, looking out at the horizon, or in a greenhouse, smelling the moisture and growth.  Any type of water attracts me, lake or river or swimming pool.  And any type of fire.  I love running, hard, like I'm being chased, through woods and over hills and glens, jumping roots and rocks and water puddles, my heart screaming in my chest.  Preferably, predictably, alone.  I don't want to race.  I don't want to fall behind or feel like I have to slow my pace.  I just want to run.

If I am with someone I love, I want to snuggle in blankets, walk hand in hand through forests, read under the same light bulb and discuss what we've learned.  I talk out of nervousness, boredom, the need to share and grasp at connection, the need to help and heal others, wanting to resolve conflict, wanting to develop ideas that are only presently vague notions, and to attack and defend my private cathedral.  When I truly feel comfortable with someone, I'm able to say nothing and let them into my safe space.  This is a rarity.

I feel like there is some magic key in these revelations.  Examining my safe spaces feels like a road map, telling me future destinations, urging me to go back and dig up treasure I'd long ago buried and forgotten about.  I think there are answers here about where I should be heading, where I should live, what I should do for money and what I should do for fun, and with whom I should spend my time.

Where do you feel safe?  Where is your metaphysical home?

One.

As a bee gathering nectar does not harm or disturb the colour and fragrance of the flower;

so do the wise move through the world.

Dhammapada: Flowers, verse 49

Yesterday I was wearing a bright red t-shirt that mum gave me that says, aptly, “In a world where you can be anything, be yourself.”  

My parents have always encouraged me to share my opinions, to ask questions, to change my mind, to stand up for what I believe is true and honorable, and to admit my mistakes and vulnerabilities.  They taught me to use my empathy and intelligence to make ethical choices, even if they didn’t agree with those choices.  Raised by strong-minded, atheist parents while being baptized into the Pentecostal faith by a doting and morally rigid, maternal grandmother, my whole childhood and adolescence was a Voltarian exercise in allowing others the space to air their opinions and practice their beliefs, even if they weren't shared by all parties involved.  For such life lessons I will be eternally gratefully.  I may also be perpetually inquisitive, or hungry for truth, if there is such a thing.

What they weren't able to teach me, perhaps because they didn't know how, was how to cope with the rejection, ridicule, and overarching, aching loneliness that comes with having divergent ideas, rigorous morals and a singular vision that runs counterpoint to almost every single other human I have ever come in contact with or loved.  I have absolutely no idea how to present what I believe in, set boundaries, and be open to other people’s points of view without also feeling a profound and enduring aloneness.  I often wonder if my ideas are just elitist constructs subconsciously designed to separate myself from others as a measure of security, a painful padding against closeness that protects neither the victim nor the assailant (if you can even tell one from the other).  Or rather, as a dear friend likes to remind me, perhaps I just "think too much."

I also don’t know how to accept that other people will continually make choices which appear to be unethical (or at least, morally and/or intellectually lazy) and about which I can do nothing but stand my ground, bite my self-righteous tongue and watch from the sidelines.  I cannot be the world's moral gatekeeper.  It isn't my responsibility.   

In other words, having an identified “self” has led to much suffering, both my own, from dissatisfaction and loneliness, and others’, when I have judged them.  Is there a way to observe the world with discernment, step in when it is necessary to relieve another’s suffering, but to cease making constant comparisons between how things are and the way I think they ought to be?  

What do you think?  Do you ever feel like by "being yourself" you are condemned to loneliness, or even ostracism?  Do you prefer to do what everyone else is doing so you don't feel left out?  Do you think we even have a "self", or is this simply a personal construct we can observe but not buy into?

The insatiable need to learn

"I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not preparation for future living."
-John Dewey


I am often given bewildered looks (at best) or criticized (at worst) for my insatiable need to learn, digest and disseminate information.  On any given week I am reading 4 to 5 books, endless papers and online journals, and asking constant questions and, generally, driving the sedate, less nerdy people around me insane.  I don't have anything to prove.  It's fun.  To me it isn't "work", which is what most people who shake their heads at me don't understand.  But I don't understand the things they do for fun.  Watching sports on TV isn't fun (but playing sports is!).  Going to noisy bars isn't fun (but dancing in your living room with friends is!).  Flipping through People Magazine isn't fun (but reading A People's History of the United States is!)  Learning something new...now THAT is a good time!  I balance this with day-job working, grad school, making art, teaching yoga, and raising two children and teaching them everything I think I know (yesterday it was Dawkin's theory of the "first person on Earth" based on an inquiry Benji made).  I have been asked if I have ADD or ADHD.  I do not.  I am intensely focused.  I have a lot of energy.  I also rarely watch TV and don't have a cell phone (the two biggest time sucks I can see in modern life).  People assume I am miserable and exhausted.  I am not.  Rather, learning and making things makes me intensely happy.  Things that get in the way of doing that (like being given mundane tasks at work or washing dishes or traffic or having an non-supportive environment) are what make me cranky.  I guess I just don't want to miss anything.  There are so many beautiful and horrible and interesting things to learn about and experience while I am alive.  People warn me I'm going to "crash."  Yes, I do occasionally get sick like the rest of the population but I'm not manic.  I don't "crash."  This is just how I am.  I'm calm (ish).  I sleep regular hours.  I eat well.  I've been this way for 32 years and I haven't sunk into a numb funk yet.  The only times in my life I've stopped reading for more than 24 hours were post-concussion and post eye-surgery.  An insatiable need to learn, question, discover and make things isn't an illness, it is a way of life.  Try it, you may like it!

If you would like to read a review of the The Magic of Reality, the Dawkins' book I was referencing, visit The Guardian.

Wellness.....is that what irony is called?

Now that I am on the road to recovery (and Tim, of course, is sick and cannot move off the couch) I have no choice but to jump back into my life with both feet.  Well, of course I have the choice, but I never give myself the "opt-out" option.  It's full-steam ahead!  Any temporary enlightenment gleaned from 24 hours of rest has flown out the window.  It's a brand-new day, let's cram it full of activities!


But the reality is:  it is raining, I am home with two small children and a sick man, we need groceries, and I have a storytelling project due this weekend.  I started the day standing on my neighbor's doorstep in my pajamas (thankfully we are the kind of friends that can be braless and unshowered in front of each other at 9am) begging to borrow some milk so I can make a cup of tea.  The day's main objective (besides keep everyone alive and my sanity intact)?  Tell a personal story to an audience, with props if possible, and record it live and post it to YouTube.


To recap: this was a difficult week.  I started a new job at the College of Craft and Design, Tim (who is in the military) was out in the field and everyone came down with the flu. 


It was raining all day here and the kids were wired from being stuck in the house, so my youngest was running around screaming while Benji and I were trying to set up the props and tell the story without interruptions.  I would give him stage directions and walk him through, but he would seem to forget half-way and get lost playing with the horse's saddle or just stare off into space and we'd have to start all over again.  We ended up cutting the story from the original 7 minutes down to about 4, just so he wouldn't get bored and distracted.  I figured if my prop man was bored, so was my audience!  As we tried recording, Oliver would run in front of the camera to see himself.  Then I would get way too frustrated to be an "engaging storyteller" (more like an exhausted control freak).  We had technical difficulties with our sound either not matching up, or not working at all!  By the time we did the last take, it was way past bedtime, which is why Ben was in his pjs and looks so tired.  I didn't even bother showering, putting on makeup, or doing anything with my hair.  My final words before the camera started rolling were something along the lines of:
"Tim! Take this insomniac hell spawn (my darling Oliver) into the hallway for five god damn minutes so I can get this bloody thing over with and everyone can go to bed!  PLEASE!  I know you are sick, but please do this for me so I don't go insane!  I have to get this done!"
That, my friends, is what a good mother who doesn't drink and makes all her meals from scratch and doesn't let her kids watch TV all day sounds like after 18 hours of being cooped up in a condo with deadlines approaching.  I use the term "good mother" loosely.  Feel free to fill it in with your own, more colorful, adjectives. 

The reason I told this personal story is because everyone can relate to a time when they wanted something to happen so bad that they would do anything to make it come true, even if it wasn't a very sensible decision.  Now that I think about it, that probably applies to 75% of my life so far!  Also, my son Benji has a difficult time with making mistakes and getting up and trying again, so I thought it would be a good story for him to absorb and be a part of.  The reason we chose to tell it with the props we did is because we just happen to have a lot of horse-related toys (some leftover from my childhood and some of them belonging to Benji and Oliver).  It was Ben's idea to wear the riding helmet (which actually belongs to Tim from his childhood horseback riding days) and Ben was insistent that he stand behind a table because he wanted it to be a bit like a puppet show.  And that yellow 4th place ribbon is an actual ribbon I won that day (all the rest of them were 6th place!).  Yes, I was THAT terrible at horseback riding.  I still am!  I've saved that ribbon all these years and it is now part of my children's dress-up basket, which you can see behind me in the corner of our play room. 


My mum, I'm sure, will tell a much different version of the story where I'm much less heroic/stoic but she's getting old and pretty soon I'll be able to beat her in an arm wrestle.  Who am I kidding?  That's never going to happen.  But I'm not sure if she can work "the YouTube" so I may have technologically arm wrestled myself to victory this time!  Plus, we gave her the flu!  Happy Mother's Day!  Love you!  xoxoxoxoxox

Knitting....all...the...time (what else is there to do, it's February?!)

I've just finished reading (literally, in the bathtub tonight) Knitting the Threads of Time by Nora Murphy.  I'm not usually one who reads much about knitting, as I'd much rather be knitting, or reading knitting patterns to lead to further knitting (you get the idea).  Plus all that talk of plies and wefts and weights makes my head spin (pun intended).  But this book is different.  Following Murphy's quest one dark, cold, Midwestern winter to make her son a sweater (having never knit a sweater before in her life) while simultaneously teaching me thousands of years of textile history centered around women's extraordinary genius, patience, and hard work is a piece of literary art.  I won't ruin the end by telling you whether or not she gets the sweater completed or about the fabulous knitting shaman she meets along the way, but I will tell you this: if you have (or had) ovaries, you like to knit or sew or crochet, and you have a few hours to spare (it is a pretty short book, 197 pages), you should read it.

But, back to the really important stuff (feel free to fake gag on my egoism if you will)...I just finished my OWN first sweater.  Well, technically I have knit Oliver a sweater (but it was so tiny!) so that doesn't count.  I roughly followed a pattern I found in this Vogue book from the bookmobile:

I say roughly because...well, let's face it, I'm not super good at following directions and I like to be creative.  In other words, I make a LOT of mistakes.  That's ok!  That's part of the fun, right?  Here's the finished product:

It has a Mobius loop in the front:

 

I added some buttons to each side.

 



Oh, and I've been also knitting my first pair of mittens, but that will have to wait until another day, because I only have one of them finished.  But here's a pouch I made awhile back:

 

 

 

It's lined with stars!

 

A big thanks to my eldest son for taking the photos for me!

How to Be a Woman

Any writer, male or female, that can spend an entire chapter riffing on pubic hair so hard I nearly pee my panties and then turn around and deconstruct the entire recorded history of women into the depressing thimble of: we've-been-too-busy-and-tired-giving-birth-and-cleaning-up-after-you-twats-to-do-anything-important has my attention.  This lady is smart.  Smart and brash and awkward and so spot-on sometimes you'll want to argue with her but then you realize she's right.  The thing is, feminism has become a dirty word.  And not in a good way, like saying something naughty under your breath makes you feel powerful behind the back of an overbearing boss.  Feminism has become embarrassing, for everyone.  Conjure up the image of a feminist in your mind and I bet you picture a short-haired, ugly, makeup-less middle-aged woman screaming bitter tirades about absolutely NOTHING.  You just want to give her a valium and a warm bath.  Nobody in their right mind wants to be that woman.  Or sleep with her.

This is not Moran.  Moran wants us to take back the word.  She wants us to stand on chairs in bars, slightly tipsy, and shout, I AM A FEMINIST.  And not just us ladies, the menfolk too.  See, the problem is most people (that actually take the time to think about this) are walking around under the impression that feminism is a "female" issue, which is ridiculous.  Feminism is a female issue as much as civil rights are a "black" issue.  The right for one gender to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Just like the right for one race to be treated equally to another is a HUMAN issue.  Feminism is a human right.  And men have as much to benefit from it as women, which is why we should all be standing on chairs right now shouting, "I am a FEMINIST" while wielding our furry muffs and spending our hard-earned paychecks on tequila shots.  Well, that's Moran's take on it anyway, but I'm pretty sure she'd be just as thrilled if you stood on a chair at the hairdresser and shouted while getting your eyebrows waxed.  The thing is ladies; no one is going to just give us rights and freedom, unfortunately.  The whole sad history of human affairs does not bode well for oppressed peoples being granted liberation from the money-hungry power mongers just because, well, the raging tyrants stopped raping and pillaging for a moment to say, "Hmmm....maybe we should share our wealth and power and get along!" 

My two grandmothers never learned to drive.  Not only were they not "allowed" to by their husbands, they didn't have the means to purchase and maintain an automobile or the freedom to use it.  And this isn't a story from 1688.  I'm not THAT old.  We're talking a few decades ago.  We're talking NOW.  These were my role models growing up.  That's why I get so bitchy and angry when I watch yet another movie/video game/advertisement/music video where the woman's role (sometimes we get lucky and there is two or three women!) is that of aggressive seductress or passive damsel in distress.  That's it.  That's what we are reduced to.  That's what all the little girls growing up have as role models.  Grotesque surgically-mutilated clowns teetering around in stilettos or else trembling ingénues waiting for a big strong man to protect them from the world and keep them safe.  Seriously?  Because that’s fucked.  Because that is not a single woman I know in real life.  And I doubt very strongly that’s a thinking-man’s idea of a solid life-partner.  A quick wank, maybe.  Real women are strong and courageous and tender and vulnerable and loving and sometimes horrible.  We are so much bigger and more complicated that society wants us to be.  And that’s what is so great about Moran’s book.  She wants us to celebrate the fact that we are bigger and more complicated than some puny, pathetic stereotypes.  As Meg Jay says, we need to get some identity capital: http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html

We need to get off the poles, get into office, throw on our big-girl granny panties and get on with getting shit done.  If that means we need to put our kids in daycare or have abortions or stop spending money on “investment bags” or get a divorce or piss off a lot of people, then so be it.  We need to let go of the boring, heterosexual get-a-man-and-have-a-baby-and-everything-will-be-perfect dream we have been sold because it isn’t a dream at all, it is a nightmare.  Everything is not perfect just because you are married with kid(s).  Sometimes those husbands leave, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes your kids get sick, or die, or hate you, or leave their damn shit all over the place and expect some magic fairy (you) to pick it up for them.  Sometimes you stare in the mirror at three am with baby-vomit on your nightgown and think, “THIS is what I was waiting for?”  All those nights at the club grinding my pelvis against some over-cologned idiot hoping he was “the one” lead to THIS?  I could have been in Paris eating truffles!  I could have painted a masterpiece!  I could have slept for more than three hours in a row for the last ten years!  I’m not discounting the joy and delight there is to be had during the coupling of two people leading to reproduction and parenthood.  I’m just saying it isn’t necessarily the pinnacle of your existence.  We need woman doing other things.  Like men.  Because men can seem to have babies and wives AND also invent shit and lead revolutions and make art and get things done.  Because they aren’t usually the ones up at three am cleaning baby vomit off their nightgowns.  They are sleeping blissfully in their cozy beds with their hand down the front of their boxers dreaming of their next merger or the blonde next door.

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled, or ruined, because all around them society was still wrong.  Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc- and you’ll also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.  Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or - most crucially of all, for a teenage girl - simply uncool.  Few girls would choose to be right – right, down into their clever, brilliant bones - but lonely. (p.10)

Just imagine how much other shit you could get done if, instead of worrying what your boyfriend thinks about how your butt looks in your new jeans, you just GOT ON WITH IT.  What if you took all that money you spent painfully and tearfully ripping downy little hairs off your beautiful body and went to Paris?  With or without said boyfriend.  Moran claims there are four things a modern grown woman needs, “a pair of yellow shoes (they unexpectedly go with everything), a friend who will come and post bail at 4 a.m., a fail-safe pie recipe, and a proper muff.  A big hairy minge”(p.45).  This big fluffy muff is not only a political statement, but it is also a subliminal message to yourself that you have better things to do than spend time and money making your front door look like a cold, itchy, child’s vagina.  Your vagina is worth more than that.  You are not going to hurt it any longer.  It has been hurt enough.  If a man takes one look at your lovely mess of curls and gags, well, let him.  I’m sure he’s no prize himself.  Maybe he’ll asphyxiate on his own vomit.  Any man who spends more than ten seconds tending to his own love triangle is a deranged sheep.  Leave him to the fold.  His vanity is his own affair.  If this narcissism also leads him to bake like a potato in tanning beds and hog the bathroom mirror during those crucial minutes you have to get ready when the kids are actually occupying themselves: RUN.  He is not a man.  He is a plastic Ken doll.  Spooning a pillow would be more emotionally fulfilling.

Even though Moran makes a thorough argument for all the ways she has been repressed or discriminated against during the long road to adulthood she never becomes morose or despondent, but instead encourages us to embrace the future with new hope that women will, one day, earn as much as men for the same work.  The future is bright; not because everything is just so much better, but because WE are getting so much better at standing up for ourselves.  Louder, more visible, angry, motivated, and banding together.  We now live in a world where Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Sedaris, and Caitlin Moran make a living BEING FUNNY.  Not being cookie-cutter sexy.  Not being rescued.  Being smart and witty and powerful and hilarious.  And there is pleasure to be had here girls.  Pleasure in making it on your own.  A deep, satisfying, post-orgasm “ahhh” in knowing you paid your own damn way and did it on your own terms.  And it doesn’t have to be lonely.  We’re all in it together.  And believe it or not there are men out there who don’t give one lick whether or not you have hairy legs.  Find them.  Don’t settle for less.

I’ll leave you with this from Moran:

Lying in a hammock, gently finger-combing your Wookiee while staring up at the sky is one of the greatest pleasures of adulthood.  By the end of a grooming session, your little minge-fro should be even and bouffy – you can gently bounce the palm of your hand off it, as if it were a tiny hair trampoline. 

Walking around a room, undressed, in front of appreciative eyes, the reflection in the mirror shows the right thing: a handful of darkness between your legs, something you refuse to hurt.  Half animal, half secret -  something to be approached with a measure of reverence, rather than just made to lie there, while cocks are chucked at it like the penultimate game on Wipeout.

And on proper spa days, you can pop a bit of conditioner on it and enjoy the subsequent cashmere softness, safe in the knowledge that you have not only reclaimed a stretch of feminism that had gotten lost under the roiling Sea of Bullshit, but will also, over your lifetime, save enough money from not waxing to bugger off to Finland and watch the aurora borealis from a five-star hotel while shit-faced on vintage brandy.

So yeah.  Keep it trimmed, keep it neat, but keep it what it’s supposed to be: an old-skool, born to rule, hot, right grown woman’s muff. (p.49)

An appetite for delight

My children look like their fathers (yes, there are two of them, so what?).  It is an undisputed fact.  Blonde, blue-eyed, with perfect eyesight, one tall and thin, the other tall and sturdy, they are strangers to my average stature, my black-brown eyes, dark mane, and bespectacled feminine face.  No one would know they were mine.  Until they laugh, that is. 

Today I watched my youngest, not quite six months old, explode with joy at something absurd, and frankly mundane:  a tippy bowl, my clumsy fumbling.  He smiled; the biggest most delightful grin (toothless, of course) and looked at me with eyes shining, searching my face to see if I was sharing in his pleasure.

I thought: “Ahh, there I am.”  I live inside my boys in our adaptability under pressure, our explosive anger at life’s injustices, our deep grief at forced isolation.  Their abundant energy, their relentless curiosity, their unassailing charm: this is my territory.  My legacy.  My contribution to their DNA.

They may share genders, body bits and complexions with their fathers, but my boys’ presence on this earth, their aliveness, their luminosity, that is all mine.

Warning: blobs of peach-colored flesh!

 

My Mom’s Having a Baby!
by Dori Hillestad Butler, Illustrated by Carol Thompson

This delightful watercolor-filled picture book reached #4 on the American Library Association’s Top Ten Challenged Books List for 2011.  Reasons for being banned?  Nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group.  Seriously, “sex-education” is a valid reason for removing a book from the library?  You can challenge a book for wanting to TEACH YOU SOMETHING?  Or just because it is teaching you something about SEX?  And since SEX is a terrible, horrible thing (that we pretty much all engage in at some point in our lives and is required to perpetuate the human race) and HAVING A BABY is a very scandalous affair, I can totally see why this would need to be pried from the chubby fingers of every preschooler on the verge of learning the word vagina (the horror!).

Ok, ok, all sarcasm aside, this is a totally legit non-fiction book designed to help parents teach young children (toddlers to early elementary) where babies come from.  Taken in this context I find it to be VERY age-appropriate.  Elizabeth’s mom has just discovered she is four weeks pregnant.  She learns the baby is only as big as her tooth, but he has a heart and a spine and skin just like a real person.  There is a super cute drawing of a maze-like umbilical cord delivering snacks and yummy food right to the baby’s belly (ice cream, carrots, and broccoli, oh my!) with an excellent explanation of how the baby is protected by a special sack of water and fed food and oxygen through this “twisty tube.”  Butler makes sure to explain all the aches and pains and grumpiness of pregnancy in a way that children can understand and not take personally.  Most children are frightened that something dreadful and dangerous is happening to their precious mothers, and this book can help put them at ease.

When Elizabeth wants to know how the baby got inside the belly her mom says, “It takes two people to make a baby.  A man and a woman.  Children can’t make babies.”  That’s a good point!  There are a lot of small children walking around with the misconception that you can spontaneously become pregnant through your belly button (no thanks to the Bible) or that you may stumble upon infants while walking among the cabbages.  Thompson’s simple drawings are designed to illustrate the basic difference between male and female reproductive organs.  The nudity is far from titillating, as the genitalia are mostly harmless blobs of peach made to represent flesh.  The most “shocking” passage is the actual description of the sex act: “The man puts his penis between the women’s legs and inside her vagina.  After a while, a white liquid shoots out of the man’s penis and into the woman’s vagina.  The liquid is full of millions of sperm.  They swim up the woman’s vagina, through her uterus, and into one of her fallopian tubes.” 

I gave a similar explanation to my five-year-old (minus the drawings) when I was pregnant with his baby brother and he asked me how Oliver “got into my tummy.”  He wasn’t frightened or damaged and has yet to start lusting after anyone on the playground.  A quarter century ago my own mother gave me a similar explanation, as well as some horribly illustrated book from the late-seventies about the “facts of life.”  I tucked the hardback behind my shelf full of more respectable fiction and only pulled it out when I could be absolutely sure no one would barge in on me.  My male cousins, on the other hand, would bribe me to steal my mother’s Reader’s Digest Medical Encyclopedia so they could sneak looks at the soft-focus pencil drawing of a wistful looking (and very-pregnant) woman reclining, her resplendent milk-breasts resting on her sensually sloping abdomen.  Either that or they actually wanted to look at the cut-away testicle illustration, also a real beauty.  My point is, children will learn about things when they are ready and curious, with or without our help.  Not only does it do a disservice to children to poo-poo their very real and mature questions with lies like, “the stork brought him during the night,” but it is ineffectual in the long run.  I would rather my child find out from me where babies come from than from his (often misinformed) peers, or worse, the internet.  And sometimes, even despite a parent’s best efforts, small children still mix up fantasy and reality.  I believed a penis looked like a tube sock (and could be stretched or rolled up like one) until I was about 13.  And let me tell you, 13 was a fine age to start that journey to growing up.  I really should send my Sex. Ed. Teacher a thank you note.

Dori Hillestad Butler, in defense of her work, has said,

Reading a book about a difficult, embarrassing, or unpleasant subject is a good way to open dialogue with your child! Even if you disagree with the values or the point of view in the book, it’s a good opportunity to share your own values with your children.  But some people just don’t want to do that. Some people would rather raise a generation of uninformed kids who have never learned to think for themselves.

She has put up with hate mail and cyber-bullying and being #4 on the ALA’s Banned Books List (which personally I see as a compliment) when all she has done is written a totally age-appropriate, lucid tale of a small family adding a new baby to the mix and dealing with all the questions that arise from younger siblings, something a million families across the world can relate to.  She has taken a difficult topic and approached it with tact and dignity and respect, both for the parents as readers and the children as listeners.  Because let’s face it, most literate children would be absolutely mortified to be caught checking out a book with baby penises on it from the library!  I think anyone who gets their nose out of joint by reading this book needs to get a handle on their own fears and insecurities before they start raining the fire and brimstone down on an author who is trying her best to answer the innocent question that makes every parent squirm: “Where do babies come from?”

Highly recommended (especially for those afraid of the word "vagina").

Underground

 

Underground by Shane E. Evans

 



A winner of the 2012 Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustration, this thoughtful picture book is deserving of its fame.  I was extremely impressed with the artwork.  The theme of darkness and slavery giving way to freedom and light is perfectly captured by Evans’ textured and moody illustrations.  I think the simple text combined with the grave and emotional artwork strikes a nice balance. 
I question whether the story itself is presented in such a simple way as to be for a very young audience (say age 3-6), in which case, the subject matter may be too complicated for such a generalized explanation.  If it is intended for an older audience (say age 6-12) its text may be insultingly easy and considered “babyish.”  This is, in my opinion, its only fault.  I did enjoy the author’s note at the end of the book expounding on the topic and the author’s personal relationship to it.  A nice, easy introduction to a horrific, complicated subject.

Most interesting thing I read this week (so far!)

“But being uninhibited may help babies and young children to explore freely. There is a trade-off between the ability to explore creatively and learn flexibly, like a child, and the ability to plan and act effectively, like an adult. The very qualities needed to act efficiently—such as swift automatic processing and a highly pruned brain network—may be intrinsically antithetical to the qualities that are useful for learning, such as flexibility.” 

 Gopnik, A.  (July 2010).  How babies think.  Scientific American, 303(1), 76-81. 

As adults, we get things done, but we stop learning new things and so the things we get done are the same old things.  Discuss.

Anger and the Rocking Chair

I have an ongoing interest in psychology, specifically evolutionary and developmental psychology, with a particular focus on children’s issues.  I work with children that have behavioral, emotional and developmental problems, both as a yoga therapist and as an intervention worker.  I’m also a single parent.  I don’t do this work because I am a particularly patient or empathetic person, in fact my loved ones probably would out me as short on temper, long on moralizing.  But rather, being in the presence of children, especially those deemed as “impossible” or “lost causes,” puts me acutely in touch with the NOW, with BEING.  Children’s emotions and needs are usually on the surface of their existence, forcing us to be present while they are vulnerable.   I respect that vulnerability.  I see it in myself.

Janet Lederman was an elementary school teacher who practiced Gestalt awareness in her inner-city “special needs” classroom.  Although written in 1969, and a bit controversial (she’s okay with spanking), the principles of Frederic Perls’ theory applied in a classroom setting are still very applicable today (if teachers would be given the trust and opportunity to use them).  Rewards are given for showing strength, courage, honesty, respect.  Negative attention seeking is channeled into more appropriate means.  For example, in one scene two “delinquent” boys are trying to get a rise out of Lederman by singing:

 “I have a girl from Culver City,

She’s got meat balls on her titties.

She’s got ham and eggs

Between her legs…”

Rather than sending them to the office to be punished by the administration or getting upset, she says, “I like the way you boys sing.  Come over to the tape recorder.”

They proceed to sing their little ditty (more sheepishly now) into the recorder.  They are afraid she will show it to the principal.  She reiterates that she likes the way they sing and that they can erase it when they are done.  They begin to sing and start critiquing their voices.  They laugh.  They try singing a different song.  She did not fulfill their expectations of shock, anger, or punishment.  But they still received the attention they so desperately required and it become an experience about SINGING, not punishment and rejection.

In another scene Lederman discusses the reality of the “messiness” of childhood, an ongoing issue in my house, and probably yours as well.  To the children of her class she says, “I am not here to take care of the tools you use, or the games you enjoy.  If I ‘pick up’ after you, you will not experience the frustration of missing parts and broken toys.  If I take care of your things you will have no way of discovering how to care for your equipment.  I will do nothing for you that you are capable of doing for yourself.”

As parents and teachers it is so very difficult to live the experience of that last line, but it is essential to raising healthy, independent, responsible, self-motivated children.  We must choose to let go of our need for total control, our insistence that it be done “our way,” in “our time,” because we are “the boss.”  Instead, we must teach children how to be their own bosses, and they can only learn that, safely and painfully, through experience.  This causes us great discomfort while we helplessly watch our children flounder and complain, and it is terribly tempting to feel resentful and the next thing you know, “Argh! I’ll just do it myself…” is tumbling like acid out of your mouth.  And what does the child hear?  “You are not fast enough.  Smart enough.  Old enough.  Good enough.”  And the truly dangerous road of learned-helplessness begins.