When Baby Squirrels Attack

Bizarre life moment #3875

While hiking alone the other day a young squirrel ran up my leg and torso, down my arm and sat on my palm.  Shocked and entranced, I stood still while he stared me down as if to say, "Well, where's the grub?"  Or maybe he thought I was a tree and was just as freaked out as I was.  Then he started nibbling my palm, so I tried to shake him off.  He ran up my arm, behind my neck and started chewing on my braid.  I shooed him and he ran to the top of my head.  At this point I was so weirded out I started flailing my arms.  I tried to grab him but he dug his claws in and clung to my hair.  Then he ran down my shoulder and clamped on to my earlobe and started eating my earrings, which were leeks.  He actually gnawed through both pairs of my earrings, creating bite marks and taking off layers of leaves.

Luckily a man came along and I yelled, "HELP!  A baby squirrel is attacking me!  I can't get him off.  He's eating my leek earrings!"

I'm quite sure I looked, and sounded, insane.  Probably not for the first time in my life.

The man pulled the squirrel off of me and he skittered to the dirt.  We all froze for a moment.  And then the squirrel ran back up my body to my ears again.  He wanted more Fimo leek.  The man and I started jumping around, he couldn't believe it either, and we finally got the squirrel off me again and the man yelled, "RUN!"" and I took off along the trail with the squirrel in hairy, hungry pursuit.

The last thing I heard the man shout was, "If you have this same problem with bears, you are on your own!"

I managed to outrun the baby squirrel and finally stopped a kilometer or so down the path to inspect the damage to my earrings and body.  No broken skin, thankfully, but my poor leeks looked like, well, like a rodent got to them.

Just the night before I had been having a conversation with my friend about how I have never really felt the need to do a lot of drugs because reality has always about as intense as I can handle.  Sometimes people look at me funny when I say things like this.  I'm sure they think I'm just being melodramatic.  I don't bother explaining that it isn't because I am a wimp, or become easily overwhelmed by emotion or new experiences, but because in real life baby squirrels attack me unprovoked and eat my jewelry while strange men pull them out of my hair.  Shit like this happens all the time.  No hallucinogens required.

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!

How not to be humiliated in a bathing suit

“Enjoy your problems.” 

~S. Suzuki

I am a swimming autodidact.  I have been swimming for as long as I can remember.  My parents even told me I was conceived in a pool (ummm, eww).  I was never afraid of the water.  Respectful, observant of weather patterns, rocks, and jellyfish, but never afraid.  I first learned how to swim by hanging on to the neck of my Dad as he would "dolphin" dive with me underwater.  I instinctively knew to hold my breath.  Or I would float on my back as Granddad or Nan swished me through the water.  Or doggy paddle on my belly from one side of the pool to the other as Mum cheered me on.  I never took formal lessons.  I read swimming books at the library.  Watched how-to videos.  Went as far out into the waves as I was allowed.  Perfected my crawl, my breaststroke, my flutter kick.  Attempted to butterfly.  I once took a part-time job manning the desk at a community centre just so I could swim and water jog for free as often as I liked.  Mum had a no-dive policy at home, so at 20, not knowing the technique, I asked a lifeguard to show me.  I practiced over and over on the side of the pool, flopping in head-first, like a seal.  I have always been of the determined sort.

At 32, I still swim regularly.  I own more bathing suits than pants.  Today I jumped into the "medium" lane as usual and swam a few warm up laps, leisurely, enjoying the refreshing feeling of cool water on my hot skin.  At the end of the lane a lifeguard crouched down and got my attention.  He pointed to the two other men in my lane, the big muscular ones, swimming aggressively in (ahem!) flippers.  He told me they were training for a triathlon and that it would be better if I changed lanes to "something more my speed."  He motioned to the lane on my left, where two other men, one older than my father and one with a form I can only describe as "flailing" took turns meandering up and down the pool.  He then grabbed the attention of a third gentleman who was also in that lane and told him to switch places with me because he was fast enough to keep up with the triathlon guys (i.e.: the "real" athletes).  Yes, the ones in neon flippers.  He smiled big and said, "Wow! What a compliment!" and hopped into the other lane.  I felt the red flushes of humiliation creep up my cheeks as I reluctantly moved to the other "medium" lane and resisted the very strong urge to jump out of the pool and yell, "Fuck you guys!" all the way into the change room until I burst into tears.  Instead I took a deep breath and remembered why I was at the pool in the first place.

You see, I am an incredibly competent swimmer.  I am, when I want to be, quite fast.  I could, in fact, probably keep pace with the macho, spandexed idiots slapping each other on the back while pointing at their watches and guzzling sports drinks in the next lane.  I could have made a big stink and said that I had every right to swim wherever the hell I wanted to.

But that is not why I swim.  I don't like competitive sports.  I don't keep track of my time.  I don't wax off all my body hair.  I don't match my swim cap to my goggles.  I don't even (gasp!) own training fins.  I swim because it feels good.  Because it calms me.  Because it is a terrific low-impact exercise that aids the range of motion in my upper body while putting my cardiovascular system through its paces.  I chose not to be humiliated because what, really, would be the point?

The lifeguard was right.  This lane WAS better for me.  The two smiling beta males I shared it with politely let me go ahead of them, acknowledging my gentle presence instead of splashing water in my face as they overtook me like the dicks next door.  I swam my 25 minutes in the pool (no, I don't keep track of how many laps that is) and hopped out for a shower.  Everyone, I remembered, was at the pool today for a different reason.  One of those reasons wasn't better than another.  Everyone moved their bodies together through cool, chlorinated water.  Every heart pounded in every chest.  How fascinating.

"It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean."

~Jon. J. Muth

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.

The Bridal Shower

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti

It starts with obvious whispers behind manicured nails.  The giggles and lips pressed together to muffle repressed hostility.  Furtive glances at thigh jiggles, spider veins, plunging necklines, contracted abdomens, shallow breaths, too much blush.  Female vanity, built on the shaky foundation of socialized insecurity is nowhere more rampant than at the bridal shower.  Who has been chosen, who hasn’t.  Comparisons of diamond cuts and weights.  Talk of upgrades and settings.  Who has gained weight, lost it, gone off the gluten, gotten a boob job, who is too old for those booty shorts, who has worn the wrong shoes with that outfit.  There are no discussions of politics, world events, art, literature.  I have one solitary conversation about planting asparagus with an aging lesbian.  I suggest someone start a craft-based home business.  There are a few polite inquiries about jobs, but no one cares.  Everyone eats too much cake.  Almost everyone expresses their guilt about it.

I know we are more than this.

We are thankfully past the era where the cruel fate of being born with ovaries sacrifices your mind and talents to a lifetime of manipulating your aging body and neglecting your soul in an attempt to catch or keep a man who can protect you, feed you, shelter you, clothe you, and on a rare occasion, even love you.  Theoretically we can care for ourselves.  Right?

So what is this ambition, this game of superiority where women, like hens in a pecking order, rank themselves (and each other) according to height, facial symmetry, hair length and texture, tooth whiteness and straightness, breast perkiness, dress size, skin smoothness, ability to walk in heels without looking like a teetering giraffe on methamphetamines?

What does this superficial brutality matter compared to our warmth, our friendship, our intelligence, our empathy, our creativity?  Why does my self-esteem soar when I realize I’m the thinnest woman in the group and they all make a fuss about it?  Why does it plummet when I stand naked in the mirror and stare incredulously at my chest, home of two sad, shriveled, deflated-looking balloons, once the source of rapture for men, babies, and myself, and now a source of shame and concealment.  Surely these are first world problems.  Surely if I was scrambling to find food for my family, my lack of skin elasticity would be a non-issue.  Instead of abundance making me peaceful, generous and content, it has left me greedy, insecure, and dissatisfied.  I can’t be the only one.  Perhaps we were rightfully rejected from the metaphorical Garden.  I suspect God knew hardship and lack make us kinder.  Less entitled to Eden.  Less unwilling to share or let anyone else in the gates. 

In an era where I can buy myself beautiful, what is the value of it?  Once having a post-pregnancy boob lift (or let’s face it, a sweet sixteen set of knockers from daddy), becomes “normal body maintenance”, along with the full-body hair removal, hair color, mani/pedis, teeth-whitening and straightening, laser skin imperfection treatment, daily workouts, and severe calorie restricting, where do we go from here?  As Mindy Kaling said, “It takes a lot of work to look like a normal/chubby woman.”  How much time and energy are we, as a gender (because I can’t speak for the others) willing to invest?  How far do you want to go in the “one-upmanship” game?  Men seem to need to constantly upgrade their stereos and TVs and cars, women need to upgrade their bodies.  Why is our source of life also such a huge source of our pain?  No TV has ever cost a man a dance with a surgeon’s knife and $10,000.  Is this because our bodies, while life giving, are also unending sources of conflicting emotion and sensations.  Giving birth is humbling, empowering, rewarding, and excruciating.  Menstruating, like our sexuality, is both a source of pride and shame (and sometimes relief!).  There have been many great books written on these subjects (I’m looking forward to reading Naomi Wolf’s Vagina next), but no one at a bridal shower (or lunch date or shopping trip) is talking about them.  Instead they are talking about Vanity Fair.  I’m not going to pretend these are easy questions to ask ourselves, but that’s why they are so important.

No amount of beauty will save you from heartbreak.  You only have to glance at the tabloids to confirm that riches and double DDs won’t stop a divorce in its tracks.  To borrow from Cheryl Strayed, love is not a competitive sport.  But I often suspect, that even if men were removed from the conversation, the competition for attention and status would remain.  When our very sense of self-worth, our right to exist as people, is based upon a variable (our outward appearance) that is subjective at best, and doomed towards complete annihilation at worst (the reality TV show we don’t want to watch – There are no Survivors), there can never be contentment.  There is no winning in the war against time and gravity.  So judging how other people are playing the game when no one wants to admit the outcome is irrelevant seems, frankly, delusional.  Then again, delusions are often a coping mechanism for distracting ourselves from a painful reality we don’t want to see.  A closet full of perfect outfits and a facelift won’t save you at the emergency room.

I’m not suggesting we stop throwing parties or celebrating life events.  I’m not going to be able to change thousands of years of female socialization.  I like buying shoes.  I want to fit in with my peers.  I’m not about to ruin someone’s wedding shower by standing on the couch and yelling, “What does it all matter anyway, we’re all gonna die and he’s probably going to cheat on you by Christmas!”

I just think it is important to stop and question what it is we are doing.  To be mindful of how profoundly fucked up we are.  That is the crack in the wall.  The tiny, almost imperceptible fissure that will let in just enough light for something new to grow.  And maybe, just maybe, that tiny bit of room is enough for me, or any of my beautiful, talented female comrades, to let ourselves be more than what we’ve become.  And to not be afraid to talk about it.  To brag about our professional achievements instead of openly criticizing our lack of willpower towards limiting bread consumption.  To celebrate one another’s emotional strengths instead of rolling our eyes at skirt length.  We are all, every single one of us, guilty of it.  We blame men and the patriarchy for treating us like objects (and they do, and that is a rant-filled discussion for another day), but I've never met any woman who doesn't fiercely objectify her own body, and those of everyone around her, right down to the littlest stretch mark.  I have never spent more than a few hours with a woman before the subject of her weight comes up.  Often it is in the first ten minutes.  I know more about most of my friends’ and family’s body hang-ups than I do about their career aspirations or political leanings.  I have no idea how my best friend votes but I know she waxes her toe hair and upper lip.

I can’t control what anyone else does.  But I want to stop talking about my body (including that horrid internal monologue) and all the things it can’t do, or isn’t going to be, and instead celebrate all the things it can do and its triumphs.  I birthed two healthy boys vaginally.  I breast-fed both of them, despite complications.  I’ve survived trauma and ill health.  I can run and swim and jump (even if I pee myself a little) and teach yoga and give a really really good head rub.  I want to live happily IN my body instead of criticizing it as an outside observer with an agenda.  My body isn’t a project.  I’m not a project manager.  It isn’t a building I live inside and I’m not its architect.  It’s a home.  I want it to feel safe.

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

Spring cleaning

Our house this week has been ransacked by THE FLU.  First Oli got it on the weekend, then Benji, and now me and my poor mother who was visiting to help with the kids while Tim was in the field.   The worst part of being sick, besides the actual vomiting and fatigue and body pain and whatnot, is the total helplessness I feel.  I am used to being a highly competent person.  I get shit done.  Usually while thinking about how I'm going to get other shit done.  If I can cram 50 hours worth of stuff into a 24 hour period I feel like it has been a good day.  So spending 30+ hours completely flat on my back and not being able to doing anything other than breathe and whine and be sick is torture for me.  The irony that sitting still is what I teach in my yoga and meditation classes is not lost here, friends.
 


But I have had a lot of time to fret over think about all the things I'm not doing: I'm not going to work at my new job where surely they must think I have the world's worst work ethic to call in sick my first week.  I'm not outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine.  I'm not cooking or cleaning or organizing or even eating, which let's face it, takes up a lot of my day.  I'm not running or swimming or walking or lifting weights (don't laugh, I try, I'm terrible at it).  I'm not playing with my kids.  I tried but Oli jumped on my belly and that was the end of that.  I'm not making anything, not being productive, not using my creativity or hands to do anything other than rub my tummy while I moan.  I'm not reading.  I'm getting behind on my school work.  My plants are all wilty but I don't have the energy to water them.  I need a bath, my hair probably smells like puke.  I can't seem to stay awake for more than an hour at a time.  I never sleep, especially in the middle of the day.  Sleep is for lazy people, you see, and I pride myself on being anything but lazy.  I wear my workaholism like a badge of honor.




Ahhh.  Here lies the real issue.  Not that I'm sick.  But that I won't allow my body to be sick.  My damn ego wants to convince the rest of me (and anyone else who will listen) that I am just way too important to be out of commission.  The world, you seen, needs me.  Never mind that the kids pretty much put themselves to bed (with some needling on my part), that Tim (who is now home) is completely preoccupied playing his video game, that work probably barely registered I wasn't there, that absolutely nothing happened because I stopped DOING.  Nobody cares that I have the flu except me.  And I don't mean that in a self-pitying "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll eat some worms" kinda way.  But the reality is: death is coming.  Some people try to ward it off by staying young-looking and fit and getting plastic surgery or never having kids or never growing up.  I ward it off by running around and around and around and around until a day like today shows up and says, "Hi, it's me, your old friend Mortality.  How much you getting done now, Sunshine?"



It's a gift really, a day like this, when you have a pounding headache and water sloshes around in your acid-filled tummy and everything hurts.  It reminds you that you are enough, just you, not your accomplishments, not your accolades, not the you who everybody thinks you are or should be.  But you, in your soggy, sweaty pajamas, with your puke-hair and your migraine and your terrible breath.  The you underneath all that clutter of expectations that wants to get better, that wants to live, that wants to go back to running around and forgetting how important it is to wake up to being here.  Because this is mediation folks: the in breath and the out.  The waking up and falling asleep.  The coming home and the wandering far far away. 




On that note, it is time for a nap.

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)

The Hard Way

I believe it was Malcolm Gladwell who said in his book, Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get really amazing at something, that talent is only a small fraction of what it takes to be a master.  People have said to me before, "Oh, if only I was as talented as you I would go back to school" (or write a book or make a scarf or whatever), which, let me tell you right now, is complete baloney.  Talent has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Yes, I work full-time while raising two kids and doing my Masters and teaching yoga and volunteering in my community and cooking all our meals and making art.  This is not because I'm a good person and it is certainly not because I was born with a special gift.  There are many many days I feel angry, anxious, overworked, overwhelmed, taken advantage of, and exhausted.  There is nothing admirable about hiding in the bathroom hyperventilating over a ruined dinner and hurt feelings, trust me.  So sometimes I just want to shake these people and say, "Hello!  If you took all the time you spend playing on your phone (or watching reality TV or gaming or whatever) and put it towards a goal you really cared about I guarantee that you can achieve it (barring natural disaster or death).  But see these worry lines and grey hairs and my nervous tic?  Yeah, well, you'll look like me, they come with the territory.

Some people just like to take it easy.  And that's great for them, if they are happy doing it.  Most days I wish I had an off-switch.  Sometimes I wish I just didn't give a f*ck about anybody or anything.  Believe me, if I could find the "detach" button on my neck I would take the whole damn head right off.  I like the idea of me on a beach listening to reggae.  But the reality is that I would spend all my "free time" on the beach snorkeling and looking up fish species in a nature guide and doing yoga and picking up trash and reading books and swimming and playing in the waves and organizing some sort of beach protection activist group and teaching myself to surf.  I would spend only 2% of my time in the hammock napping.  That is who I am.  I like to take the hard way.

Why?  Well, that's the million dollar question, but I think a lot of it comes back to my parents and the way I was raised.  The ability to defer gratification is a badge of honor in my family.  As well as the ability to endure emotional anguish in exchange for originality and independence (I think Murakami expressed a similar sentiment in his memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running).  I have not always been this way.  I used to smoke.  And overeat.  I used to be a horrible procrastinator (and still am occasionally...in fact I'm avoiding writing a paper by writing this blog post!).  But slowly, with time and maturity, I'm only now beginning to realize that it's the really hard stuff in life that is the most rewarding in the long term.  Maintaining boundaries in relationships.  Carrying a child in utero and then pushing it out while experiencing the kind of pain for which there is no words.  And then loving and caring for that child even when they make you want to drink all the vodka in the house before noon.  Writing a thesis and getting an A.  Selling a painting you struggled with to someone who loves it dearly and thanks you for making it.  Writing, even when you don't want to, even when you say you can't.  Making the conscious choice to breathe instead of following the impulse to act out in anger (even if your husband is really getting on your nerves). 

There is no feeling that can compare to the elation and lasting sense of accomplishment I feel when I finish a course, or complete that last stitch on a dress I've been slowly working away on for months, or bite into a delicious dinner.  The temporary high from drugs just don't compare.  And like any good people-pleaser, I enjoy accolades and recognition for my hard work, but secretly I know I would be like this in a vacuum.  Alone on a deserted island I would still be on that damn beach classifying rocks and cataloguing them into different piles.  I'm intrinsically motivated.  The process is as important as the end result.  I love making things, but I like the act of making the thing as much as the finished product.  I want to be emotionally invested in whatever I'm undertaking or I'm miserable and it's a tough slog to the other side (and totally hell to live with me).

So, all this to say, Thanks Mum.  Thanks for not letting me quit when the going got tough.  Thanks for being an example of strength and resilience in the face of more shit than any one life should dish out.  Thanks Dad, for teaching me to live within my means.  For supporting me through all my crazy plans and ideas and false starts and complete disasters.  And I also needed to remind myself that sometimes, when the going gets tough, you just need a plan.  Sit down, write, and you'll find yourself again.  Breathe.  Come home to your heart.  There's no map for the hard way, you just figure it out as you go along.  And to those of you on your own hard journeys, with your own seemingly impossible goals, I'll see you on the other side, because I know you'll get there. 

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

Anyone who has been to my yoga or meditation classes has heard me reference the Buddhist concept of "monkey mind," that ongoing internal dialogue from the ego that constantly demands our attention.  Anyone who has known me for longer than ten minutes knows that "monkey mind" is the bane of my existence.  Like Daniel Smith in his funny and honest memoir about living with this demanding beast, I have found discipline and self-awareness to be the only tools that really deliver consistent results (with the occasional mind-altering pharmaceutical or visit to the therapist's office thrown in for good measure). 

 

          "I didn't yet realize that there is no cure for anxiety, just perpetual treatment."  (p. 206)

Smith spends most of the book recounting his teen years and shaky twenties and how anxiety was (and still is) the evil companion that accompanied his romantic relationships, professional successes and failures, and day-to-day living.  I like how he breaks the neurotic down into two categories: those who think they are dying when they are having a panic attack and those who think they are going crazy.  Every anxious person I know (and I know a lot of them) falls into one of those two pathetic, sweaty holes when panic strikes, every time, without fail.  The latter has always been my specialty.  I guess I figured out at an early age there are worse things than death.  I remember asking my father one night before bed (I was probably five), "Dad, how do you know if you are crazy?"  He sighed at my constant need for reassurance and replied, "If you were crazy you wouldn't be asking me."  From then on I decided constant vigilance was the only way to keep madness at bay.  For my death-obsessed brethren, it is much the same fight, only they arm themselves with antibacterial hand-soap instead of treatises on logic.  Either way, the intellectualization of something horribly felt in the body and perceived as uncontrollable by the mind always ends in chaos.  Yoga and meditation have taught me we need to get OUT of the mind and into the body in order to establish emotional equilibrium.

 

Anxiety is always about control.  Or rather, our lack of it.  Smith talks about the times in his life when he felt most out of control (going to a college of his mother's choosing, having sex when he didn't really want to, being criticized for an article he wrote, being unable to express himself in a relationship) and they almost always centered on pushing himself to do something he didn't really want to do but not having enough self-awareness to know what he really wanted and not enough guts to say, "I don't know what I want, but it's not this."  This lack of trust in our own intuition is a hallmark of relying on the monkey mind.  When we don't know who we really are or what we really want we assume someone else must know better, while the crazy animal in our head bashes away at his cymbals and we do our best to drown him out.  We are afraid to say, "I don't know."  We are terrified of uncertainty.

 

There's a Zen saying that life is 10,000 sorrows and 10,000 joys.  We don't get to decide how those are delivered or when.  They are not evenly distributed.  They do not come with explanations.  All we can do is react when they arrive.  We can deal with things as they happen, in this moment.  Humans are stubbornly resistant to discomfort.  We will make ourselves miserable rather than admit we don't know what is going to happen next.  We somehow make a habit out of our obsessive fearfulness.  Loss is a lecherous old friend, seducing us to believe that it is better to be miserable and pretend we are in control than free.  Freedom is not for the faint of heart or the thin-skinned.  It has little to do with your social or economic status and everything to do with opening yourself to the unknown.  When you are calm on the inside you can handle almost anything that is happening on the outside.  I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Charles Bukowski, who was himself no stranger to the monkey mind:

 

"I have met free men in the strangest of places and at ALL ages - as janitors, car thieves, car washers, and some free women too - mostly as nurses or waitresses, and at ALL ages, the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them."  Tales of Ordinary Madness