The Seventies In South Africa

My Mom sent me this last week. I love my little swagger.

March

Is it just me, or is March a lonely month? Now that this month is here again, I'm reminded of the way I feel such restlessness and loneliness during March. I feel like the light is strange. It's more plentiful all of a sudden, and it's still white like the winter sun. Spring is in the air, but it's still cold. The coziness of winter (in so much as I ever consider winter cozy) is being peeled away, but the warmth and active feeling of summer isn't here yet. And it's windy. Windy days can make me feel anxious. I don't know. It seems kind of silly to blame a month for my mood, but every year I'm relieved when April arrives.

Blog Thoughts

I am considering going private with the blog. Or, one thought from Firefly would be that she could open her blog to multiple contributors, and I could post there. Here is my reasoning for wanting to go private:
1. This blog has become a private conversation between friends, and I would like to share more deeply in the context of that conversation, but I feel hampered by the public nature of the internet.
2. I have lost a sense of purpose for a public blog. which makes it hard for me to know what I would even want to share publicly.

I guess that's really all I'm thinking. Please do weigh in if you have any opinions at all.

Sedona

I've been in my head the last week or so, not always in a pleasant way. So I've pulled back from blogging. But I did get some photos from my friend of our day in Sedona, and I thought I should post them.

Here's the rock we climbed:



Here's some of the view:


And here I am at the highest peak I braved. (Showing off my crooked elbow.)

Miscellaneous Update

I'm feeling better today, though still a bit sluggish. Do you all feel disheartened after being sick? Like you are so behind and still tired, and why even try to catch up? I'm feeling like that today.

I've also been reading The Golden Compass, and loving it! Eric starting reading it to me on Saturday when I was moaning from aches and pains, and now I'm hooked. There's this fun concept in it of everyone having a "daemon," which is some extension of a person's consciousness and being, but they take animal forms. The children's daemons can change shape, experimenting with all kinds of animals, but once the child grows up, then the daemon settles into one kind of being. I think it's a fantastic idea for a fantasy book, and I love seeing what form the various daemons take in the book.

And speaking of animals, I saw this video on YouTube and couldn't resist posting it. It's a hedgehog eating. It looks so cute it feel like it should be animation. Does that not remind you of Winnie the Pooh?

That's all for now. Tomorrow I have my writing class and I've done NOTHING this week. And then Friday Eric and I leave for our super annual Dance Flurry weekend. I wish you were all coming.

Sick Day

I've been home sick all day today. I haven't left the house since I got home on Saturday afternoon. I'm still battling exhaustion and a headache that makes my head feel like a lead balloon held up with a toothpick. I haven't done anything productive for three days. It's such a strange feeling to be sick and watch the world march by.

Lesson 1

The writing class I'm taking for the second time always starts with the same assignment: write every day for 15 minutes in a journal.

This is a common assignment for writers, since the only way to improve as a writer is to write, write often, and then keep writing. It's an assignment similar to Julia Cameron’s “morning pages” where she asks you to “dump” three pages of writing every day, regardless of any excuses you have. However, the way my teacher, Elaine Edelman gives the 15 minutes a day assignment ends up working slightly differently for me.

For one thing, the 15 minutes isn’t suppose to be writing that just clears the pipes, as the morning pages can often be, though it might be. Elaine encourages us to get quiet before beginning, and to try to be concrete in what we write. If we are writing about memories, try to be intentional about the details of that memory. Don’t treat the 15 minutes as a time to record thoughts and feelings, but follow those thoughts and feelings with concrete examples that perhaps inspired the thoughts and feelings.

Fifteen minutes is not a long time. I probably give fifteen minutes every day to brushing my teeth, flossing, and washing my face. However, sticking to the discipline has never worked for me, yet. But I made a renewed attempt at it this week and had better results than ever before. Here’s what I tried:

1. On the first day, when I could feel my defenses rising against it, I took some time to visualize myself doing the activity. It was morning, and I told myself, I don’t have time to do the writing right now, so I’ll do it in the evening. But I know that all too many times, I find excuses for not doing it in the evening. So that morning—when I thought to myself, “I’m too busy”—I took a moment to visualize myself getting quiet that night and opening my journal and writing. I made it a pleasant vision, a space that I would gladly retreat to, and that night I actually looked forward to taking that time to be quiet and write.
2. I only made myself think of it as a 15-minute commitment. Many nights I wrote longer. A couple of days I took what I had written and typed it up and worked on it further. But each night I would say to myself, “it’s only 15 minutes,” and that helped fight the resistance to the task.
3. I set aside one topic for the week, and despite all of the things on my mind, I tried to refocus back to the same topic each night when I picked up the writing journal. It made it feel more like a project instead of just a time to see in writing the scattered thoughts in my head.
4. I let myself do it in the evening. I often feel like I should do this in the morning. The morning is when I’m freshest and when I’m most alert, and when I get my best work done. But for whatever reason, it’s also the time that I feel the most anxiety about what I “should” be doing with my time, and many mornings I’m sleepy or in a rush, and it’s too easy to have to skip it. Once I’ve skipped it and missed my “allotted” time, then I feel like I failed and why bother. By doing it in the evening, I am less likely to “have” to skip it. After all, I can go to bed 15 minutes later. Right? How will that make a big difference?

I guess all of this proves the point that writing is first and foremost a mind game against one’s self. Both the clarity of focus and the internal fears that what I have to say will never want to be read by others work together to sabotage the work. I think that’s why Elaine emphasizes creating the habit and making it manageable. She also reminds us that we are “apprentices,” we are learning and beginning, and we need to embrace and enjoy the status rather than judging our work. All part of that mind game. Hopefully, by creating the habit, we start to put the work in the automatic part of the mind that is harder to undo.

One last thought about this practice and blogging. I’ve been wondering whether or not blogging daily is the same as doing this exercise. In some ways I think it can be. I certainly think blogging regularly can be an excellent writing practice. But something she said makes me think it’s intentionally different. She said that we use such a small portion of our brain throughout the day, and most of that is the “social” part of it. By getting quiet and making space for the reflection, she wants us to activate the other parts of the brain, to bring up forgotten memories, to go to spaces that we don’t easily visit. So I think blogging is still part of the “social” mind. And it’s instant publishing. I think the journal time is space to write without revising. To pull together the clay and mud that will later be sculpted.

I've completed this assignment for six out of the last seven days. A modest victory, but a beginning. You all can help me stick to the commitment.

I welcome suggestions for battling the mind games. And your thoughts on writing and writing regularly. And maybe your thoughts on traditional journal writing and something like this that tries to be a little more focused. I didn't really get into that comparison.

Sense of Humor

I've been observing storytelling in preschool centers lately, and it's gotten me fascinated by early childhood development. The last couple of days I've been contemplating how much sense of humor changes with kids in those early years. I have no conclusions, and precious little data, but I wanted to share a couple of fun observations.

1. The first comes from my weekend with Andrew. Andrew is a laugher. He likes to laugh and he likes other people to laugh. But when we played Mr. Potato Head, it was not time to laugh. Mr. Potato Head was serious work. The eyes had to go in the eye hole and the nose in the nose hole, and we had to name the body parts. And in an effort that took tremendous concentration, the mustache had to be carefully skewered by the nose in order to attach to the face.

If I were to take the nose and put it where the eyes should go, this was not funny. It was met with crossed eyebrows and a firm, "no." If I put the tongue where the hat should go, trust me, a very funny effect, it got the same frustrated response. It made me wonder when kids go from trying to get Mr. Potato Head correct to trying to make Mr. Potato Head a mixed up joke. It must be after the body parts have been mastered and no longer present a challenge.

2. I watched the same story being told to five year-olds and then to four year-olds. In the story, there's an Old Man Turtle character who walks very slowly. The storyteller did a great job of acting this out with her hands and her face. She said, "Old Man Turtle walked like this: One..." here she would raise one hand and open her mouth and freeze in an exaggerated and silly way, and then when you were just beginning to think, 'will she ever go again?' she would finish, "step." And then start again. "One..."

The five year-olds thought this was hilarious. They giggled in that deep-bellied way. They would look at her and then each other and just lose it.

When the story was told to the four year-olds, they didn't laugh at first. Some would start to look away instead of watching her face. There was a funny silence rather than anticipation. After a couple of times, some of them got the joke. A few giggles broke out in the circle. But ultimately, she cut it short and made a statement about how long it took the turtle to get down the road.

I am fascinated by what changes between ages four and five. Why did those five's laugh with that uncontrollable laughter and the four's not really get it? Did it take too long? Did the four's not have the same level of attention, so that the pause could feel awkward? What is it about that action that makes me giggle? It's something that also makes adults laugh--awkward pauses that seem out of step with societal norms. Do five year-olds begin to tune into society's timing? Does it reflect their ability to interact on a deeper level? To be aware of discomfort in an interpersonal interaction on some level? Or were they just laughing at the funny face the storyteller made?

So interesting these little ones.

Writing Class

Last night I started my writing workshop class. I'm taking the same class with the same instructor as last Fall. Before the class started, I met Janel Moloney, an actress from West Wing (I didn't know her work, I learned this info later), who told me about the class I'd missed last week. She said that many people had taken the class before, so I was hoping to see more familiar faces. When I started last semester, many of the students were repeats. So this introduction had me feeling a little surprised when everyone piled into the room and all but one of the faces was new.

Repeating the class means that I hear some of the same assignments and suggestions from the professor, and that was interesting. It wasn't new, and so I spent more time watching the other students' reactions. It made me think about my professor's experience at the beginning of each semester, when she walks into a room filled with new faces and new lives. I saw her working to try and draw out stories so that she could better understand her students. I saw her trying to encourage and yet set boundaries. And I listened to her repeat herself and wondered how that felt as the teacher to start anew several times with the same basics to communicate.

I enjoyed the feeling of familiarity with the professor. I enjoyed the possibility of learning about all of these new classmates. But I missed the familiarity of the writing circle we had last semester. In my mind, nothing was changing, I was just taking a winter break. But in reality, everything has changed.

On another note, Firefly wanted me to do a writing tutorial, inspired by Robyn's button making tutorial. Anyone interested? I'll just steal from teachers I've had. No great promises. But I can share what I'm learning.

Dr. Davidson

I fear I've over-hyped this entry. But maybe the history will help you understand the mystique.

Eric and I went to visit a friend we know from the New York swing dancing scene. He is a former physical therapist who got sick of running an office and dealing with insurance companies and sold his successful business at a young age. At some point in this journey, I’m not sure whether it was before or after leaving his business, he met Dr. Davidson, an osteopath and homeopath.

Dr. Davidson is a master in his field. People travel from all over the world to be treated by him. He has cured diseases and problems that traditional medicine either say cannot be cured or must be cured with surgery or chemo or other drastic measures. He does this primarily with osteopathic manipulation, which is different from chiropractic manipulation, or perhaps I should say subtler than chiropractic manipulation.

Our friend took some classes from Dr. Davidson, watched him treat scoliosis and cure things that he had been spending months and years treating in his physical therapy practice and he was reborn. He decided to devote his work to learning directly from Dr. Davidson and he began doing manipulation work instead of physical therapy.

Our friend has been learning from him for at least six or seven years now, probably longer, but I’m not sure so I’ll go with the conservative estimate. Eric and I have both been treated by our friend, and for a long time everyone in New York just thought he was crazy and had bought some New Age-y medicine system. People thought this, because the treatment feels so bizarre. The doctor touches you, finds “strains or shocks” in the body, and then touch you in barely perceptible ways and that’s it. Sometimes, I feel a drastic shift in my body after a treatment. Sometimes I don’t feel a drastic change. Which contributes to the feeling of “what did they just do?” But I was always a believer in osteopathic treatments, because our friend did a lot to treat my scoliosis.

So we went out to Phoenix, and of course, we had to see Dr. Davidson, because we’d heard so much. Plus, I’d talked to our friend about the polyps, and he recommended I see Dr. Davidson, because he didn’t have enough knowledge to treat it, but he had seen Dr. D treat other women with similar problems. I sat down in Dr. Davidson’s office and told him about myself—some medical history, what kind of things I’m sensitive to (like sugar and caffeine), etc. He took notes and then he examined me. The week before seeing him, I had started to develop what felt like a UTI, but in fact wasn’t. (I had been to the doctors and been tested.) This has happened to me a couple of times before. He felt my pelvis and said it was twisted and torqued from the surgery. He manipulated it—which as I said, is subtle and a little strange—and I instantly was standing differently. The problems I had been experiencing went away that weekend. He then treated all kinds of different things, most of which I really don’t know or understand. But he checks you all over, diagnosing when something is out of alignment and then fixes it.

The most interesting part of the treatment was when he worked on my head. He said that the brain wasn’t moving within the membrane properly. I guess the membrane around the brain keeps it moving, and in my case, something was stuck, and the brain was working to keep itself moving. Dr. Davidson said to my friend—who watched the treatment as a learning tool—that this would result in a lack of vitality. He also said it was putting strain on the pituitary gland.

Now the fascinating thing about this diagnosis is that for the last two years, I have had a lot of blood work done by my OB-GYN, and the only thing that tested problematic is one hormone that is produced and regulated by the pituitary gland. (I hadn’t told any of this to Dr. Davidson, because I hadn’t thought of it when we were talking.) Last year my doctor made me get an MRI, because typically this hormone is out of balance when there’s a tumor on the pituitary gland. The MRI came back normal, and that was the end of it. My OB-GYN thought that if I had trouble getting pregnant, she would send me to an endocrinologist and do further tests.

So Dr. Davidson manipulated my skull and the membrane (don’t ask me how, I have no idea how it works, but I could feel the pressure in my head change) and he gave me a homeopathic treatment that helped with a strain in my sternum that pulls my head into a funny position. And he said to get in touch with him in a month after finishing the homeopathic treatment. This all took about 30-40 minutes.

Now, who knows what this all means. I’m going to have to get my blood tested to see if there’s a change in the hormone levels. And since I went into his office without some disease, the changes are subtle. Though, there are some remarkable improvements.
1. I often get locked up in my diaphragm and breathing will become a struggle. When this happens I yawn a lot and feel worn out from the struggle to breathe. I was feeling like this before the treatment, and after the treatment I was breathing easy and the color returned to my cheeks. In fact, for the whole weekend, I was amazed at the color in my face and the shine in my eyes.
2. As I said, I was experiencing irritation in my pelvis and all the functions associated with that and that has gone away.

But no doubt about it, it’s a bizarre treatment. I can see why modern medicine feels like there’s no way it can work. But after listening to my friends’ stories and seeing a true master like Dr. Davidson work, I have to say I’m a believer.

So that’s my story of treatment. I feel like I want to share other stories, such as the history of osteopathic medicine (at least the little I heard from my friend), other amazing treatment stories, stories about what a funny man Dr. Davidson is, and thoughts on how this experience makes me think about health insurance. I do feel like this is going on forever.

One reflection, since we’re talking about health insurance, Dr. Davidson will not take any insurance. We can submit his bill to our insurance policy, because we have an out-of-network plan, but he wants nothing to do with it. And if we get a national health plan, he’ll find a way to work outside of it. He had an article in his office written by a doctor talking about why he (the author of the article) didn’t accept insurance. It said that the doctor felt he had to compromise his care for patients to meet the requirements of the insurance policy. Some patients came in asking for every test in the book because it was basically free for them, and this meant he had less time and then later, less insurance quotas, to treat the truly sick. Therefore, to meet the insurance quotas, he was trying to discourage patients from getting tests, and he felt guilty about the games he had to play to keep his office running. He felt that ultimately he saw that dead patients meant the most savings to the insurance companies, and this made him feel a tension to care for his patients to the best of his ability and to not upset the insurance companies and have them stop working with his office. I think this tension is the reason many doctors want nothing to do with insurance. In fact, since I’ve gotten on Eric’s super insurance plan, I’ve been to the best doctors I’ve ever seen, and none of them take insurance or co-pays.

The other interesting thing to think about is how much cheaper Dr. Davidson is than much of the medical profession. He has very high rates, and in some ways, it could look more expensive. Eric and I paid a lot for this one visit. But then, what is a lot? (I don’t really want to quote numbers here, but I’m happy to share in a more private forum.) When I got that blood work done, and my doctor wanted me to get an MRI, that was at least ten times as expensive as this treatment from Dr. Davidson. And he was able to diagnose a problem with my pituitary gland that was subtler than the MRI machine could detect. And I’m going out on a limb of faith that many skeptics would laugh at, but I have to wonder if the manipulation treatment didn’t ultimate treat a problem that could have led to a tumor after many years.

And in terms of cost, well, Dr. Davidson treats patients with cancer. I’m sure his treatments end up being far less than chemo and radiation. So it’s interesting how cost is calculated. My friend told a story about a man he cured of a lymphatic cancer. The man had been too sick to be treated with chemo or surgery, so the hospital had sent him home to die. My friend talked to him and learned that six months earlier he had been knocked unconscious by a falling box at work, and since the accident his health had deteriorated until he was now dying of cancer. My friend treated the shock from the accident and got his body back to functioning after a week of regular treatments. He began improving and went back to his doctor cured of cancer within the month.

The osteopathic philosophy is that if the body is in proper alignment, able to move properly, then the body achieves health on its own. Many things can inhibit proper alignment: a poor constitution (bad genes), an accident or severe shock to the system, emotions, environment, etc. But they diagnose everything by feeling where the body is out of alignment and putting it back into alignment.

Dr. Davidson’s criticism of mainstream medical practice is that they spend too much time treating symptoms and don’t get to the root of the problem.

I’m really attracted to the underlying philosophies of osteopathic medicine. I don’t think it’s the only medical answer, but I wish so very much that more osteopaths were trained and working as an alternative. My friend explained that when the pharmaceutical industry became so big after WWII, osteopaths were pushed out of medicine by the AA. Some of the colleges managed to convince the government that they deserved funding, because they worked in rural areas and they were general family doctors, and those were harder and hard to find. But when Dr. Davidson was starting his career in the seventies, he spent one week of every month traveling to learn from the best in the field—older doctors that all died in the eighties and nineties. Now, it’s very, very hard to find an osteopath who’s any good. Or at least I say this based on my friend’s experience with the doctors he’s met. Many doctors are in training now, but this branch of medicine is sort of the bastard child of medicine.

But I wish I could be regularly treated by either my friend or Dr. Davidson. There’s something to this. I feel a little sheepish about my convictions, but the convictions are strong nonetheless. I really appreciate this view of the body and disease and health. And even though I trusted my OB-GYN to do surgery on me, I am fundamentally unhappy with the way she cared for my body. I think she did an excellent job by medical standards. I think the surgery was amazingly smooth and that she gave me top-notch care in the style she was trained. But her training has no idea what caused the problem in the first place and she doesn’t even care. If surgery can take away “the problem” of polyps, that’s good enough for her. It’s not good enough for me. And I think there are other ways.

Home

On the subway ride home last night, I turned to Eric and said, "do you always wonder if the apartment will be flooded or burned down when we're traveling home from a trip?"

He replied, "oh, you do that too?"

I'm happy to report that we returned to no damages and thirsty--as opposed to dead--plants. And I guess I'm glad that Eric is equally neurotic.

I'll post pictures later and try to get to some reflective writing. I've got a busy week after a relaxing long weekend.

Traveling

Eric and I are having a great time in Phoenix with our friends. The weather has been rainy for Phoenix, but full of sunshine from our perspective. We've hiked two of the mountains within the city--Lookout Mountain and Squaw Peak. I love this about Phoenix. Right in the middle of the city, there are mountain preserves that you can hike. Hundreds (thousands?) of people come to them every day for exercise and enjoyment. I would LOVE to be able to leave my house and walk to a great hike up a mountain. People come before and after work, on lunch break, etc. What a great routine.

We also went to the gym with our friend who teaches classes. She took us to a mega-gym in Scottsdale, and Eric and I were in awe of the luxurious amenities. There are huge rock climbing walls, multiple large pools, a staggering amount of equipment, large rooms for classes, steam rooms and saunas and beautiful tiled showers. We worked out, showered, ate in the cafe and contemplated splurging on massages at the spa.

Yesterday our friends took us to Sedona where we scrambled up Bell Rock for gorgeous views of the red rock cliffs around us and then took a short hike up Wilson Mountain. We ate at a great vegetarian restaurant and just enjoyed the light and the beauty of Sedona.

Today is our last day, and we are sad to be leaving. But I'm so glad for the trip. It felt strange to be taking a vacation in January. If it weren't for the opportunity to see Dr. Davidson (I'll explain more about this in another post), we probably would have scheduled the trip further from the Christmas break. But now that we've done it, I feel like it was a great idea to give ourselves this little injection of sunshine in the middle of the winter. It gives me strength to wait for spring.

Procrastinating

I'm suppose to be packing for our trip to Phoenix (we leave tomorrow), but I don't want to do it. I'm tired from a full day of work. I'm having trouble breathing deeply. (It's a problem I regularly get and it's very irritating.) And I just want to sit here and read blogs and ignore the packing job.
So, I've managed to make packing last three hours. And I'm still not done. But I've made a royal mess on the bed, so I'll be forced to finish if I ever want to go to sleep. And I really want to go to sleep.

Practicing

Eric and I packed up our bag this Friday for a weekend away...in Brooklyn. A new apartment, complete with cheesecake, a new red pillow, and a two-year old.

When Eric shared this news with his father, our adopted "grandfather," and a friend, they all said the same thing: "oh, you're practicing!" And when I shared the news with the family I tutor, the parents came to the same conclusion, "good practice." And sure enough, when I met Eric at Robyn's house late Friday night, Eric had been schooled in diaper changing, bathing, and bedtime routines. All a first for him. This startles me a bit. I can't imagine getting to my forties without ever having changed a diaper, but Eric is a man of many talents. And now diaper changer can be added to his resume. Good thing he's such a quick learner.

All in all, Andrew has adjusted fairly well to waking up to unexpected faces. Winnie the Pooh has helped to soothe him during the sad times, and during the happy times we're having lots of fun. And Eric and I are practicing going slower.

BKS

Early Stages hires storytellers for five preschool centers in the Brooklyn housing projects. The centers together are called the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, and the two centers I've seen are excellent programs. Today I went to observe a new storyteller and I watched her work with two, three, and four-year olds. The kids are so little that a new adult can't just observe, or the kids want to watch the newcomer instead of participating. So I sat on the rug and did all of the motions and songs and games with them. It was quite enjoyable.
In the two-year old class, I came I little late, so she had already begun the lesson when I snuck onto the back of the rug. One little boy crawled right over to me and put his head in my lap and lay there while I rubbed his back. It was a little bizarre and made me think that he must not get enough attention. It just doesn't seem typical for two-year olds to throw themselves into strangers' laps. In the three-year old class, there was another little boy who was fascinated by my presence. I finally pulled him into my lap to help him focus on the story time. After following along for a while, he then turned around to poke at my necklace, feel my arms and just generally stare at me and figure me out.
Its kind of nice to be around little ones with their different rules of engagement. They poke and stare and giggle. Especially the three-year olds. They thought so many things were hilarious, and the peer pressure to join in the laughter is intense at that age. I'm just saying. Knees and shoulders, funny stuff.

Quiet

My usually schedule has been thrown off this week. The woman I work with for the storytelling internship was too busy to meet me on Tuesday. Yesterday, I enjoyed the extra time. I had a whole day with nothing scheduled, and I used it well to think and do chores around the house.
Today, I have a similarly open schedule, though with a couple appointments. This morning I am not enjoying the time. It's too quiet. I get scared that I'm too disconnected from the world. It's funny how I can think of a million things I would like to do, and even do many of them, but the quiet seeps in and makes me wonder if I'm using my time well. The quiet makes me question myself. And in this state of insecurity, it's hard to even do things that I enjoy. I wonder if I shouldn't be doing something else instead.

Knowing Where We Come From

"Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. It means knowing where we come from." -I think this is Kathleen Norris in Dakota, but I'm not sure.

Last year was a significant year in my life. It probably wouldn't look like it on the surface, in fact I agonized over talking about it at parties, but internally a lot of work was done. Looking back, I would say that I began to thaw my emotions. So it was interesting to find this journal entry written during my first year of college:

September 1995:
Lord, I’ve made it through a month of classes. I survived. I wasn’t sure I’d make it there for a while, but I did. Father, whenever I look back, I can see your hand upon my life, but right now, I don’t feel your presence at all. A million things seem to scream for my attention.
I’m sitting here quietly by the stream at Forest Home. We’ve sung praises tons and tons and the focus is on you Lord, or that’s the goal. But I don’t know how Lord, to focus on you and hear your voice. I've become numb. I often feel numb. I fail to express or even to have deep emotions. I can’t or don’t know how to express emotions and I can’t release them within me. When did I turn them off? Is it just the way you made me, Lord?

and this one from a couple weeks later:

September 24, 1995
My weekend at “home” is almost over. I wish I had a home. I wish there was some place I could go kick off my shoes, be myself and feel at home. When I’m at school I’m on guard, watching, learning, imitating. When I’m here (Anaheim), I have my family—-who are stressed out--and my house, which is still foreign. But I don’t know my way around town. I don’t know how to drive. I don’t really like church. I’m still having to always reach out. I’m still learning and watching.

I'm beginning to reflect on that first year back in the States. (I returned to California, to the home of my childhood in July 1995 and started college a month later.) I think I went into a state of shock, where I eventually learned how to imitate behavior that would make me seem like I belonged, but on some level, I never did. I developed really good coping mechanisms for surviving in new environments. But I lost track of who I was or where I came from.

Quotes

Found in one of my journals from my first year out of college...

"There are all kinds of stories. Some are born with the telling; their substance is language, and before someone puts them into words they are but a hint of an emotion, a caprice of mind, an image, or an intangible recollection. Others are manifest whole, like an apple, and can be repeated infinitely without risk of altering their meaning. Some are taken from reality and process through inspiration, while others rise up from an instant of inspiration and become real after being told. And then there are secret stories that remain hidden in the shadows of the mind; they are like living organisms, they grow roots and tentacles, they become covered with excrescences and parasites, and with time are transformed into the matter of nightmares. To exorcise the demons of memory, it is sometimes necessary to tell them as a story."
-From The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende

"Often people try to live life backwards: I try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what I want so that I will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."
-Margaret Young (I don't know what this is from or who she is.)

"...all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
-Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)

"It seems risky, this pretense to adulthood." - Kathleen Norris from Cloister Walk
(She's talking about her first year after college.)

"Conversion means starting with who we are, not who we wish we were. It means knowing where we come from." -I think this is Kathleen Norris in Dakota, but I'm not sure.

Storyteller

Now that I think about it, my love of stories and storytelling has many roots in my life.

*When I was little, my favorite activity was reading--both being read to, or sitting and staring at books even before I could read.

*I used to beg my Mom to tell me stories. (Tell, not read. Read-alouds were a given.) She didn't make up stories much, but I have two vivid memories of when she did actual tell stories. One is this mysterious memory of her making up a story about pirate treasure. I still have this vague sense of a lost story out there, because she could never tell it again when requested and I've forgotten the tale. And the second memory is of the first time I heard the biblical story of Esther. My Mom was braiding my hair for church when she began the story. I followed her around for the next half hour while she put on her make-up, got dressed, and dressed my brothers all the while asking questions about what happened next.

*In Africa my class loved a missionary who had grown up in Liberia and learned tons of Liberian stories. Most of them were animal tales, and he was a great performer. We invited him to join our class on our senior trip just so he would tell us stories at night.

*For my college senior thesis paper in history, I chose The Heptameron as my primary text. It's a 16th century collection of 72 stories similar to the Decameron. The format of these books is people telling stories to each other.

*When I was a teacher, my favorite unit to teach was my folktale, myth, and legends unit. I started teaching this because I was given no books, and these were the easiest texts to photocopy for my students. But it grew into a unit I taught every year, and over the three years I taught it, I probably collected over a hundred different stories that I liked and brought into the classroom in various ways.

*My favorite thing to do in the classroom is read-aloud. I love the feeling of shared community that can be felt so keenly when we share a story. I love, love reading aloud to the kids I tutor. I love reading aloud to Eric. It's just magical.

I don't really know what all of this means, per say, but it is interesting to look back and notice it. Especially the more recent developments.

Remember...

that age when you started saying to adults, "do you know [insert random fact]?" I was always so frustrated when they answered, "yes, I did know that."

I think this must happen around 8 or 9 years of age, but suddenly I remember feeling amazed at the scope of mysteries that I was able to understand. Every day was full of opportunities to soak up more knowledge, more information about the world. It seemed impossible that the adults already had all of this knowledge stored inside their brains. Did they realize how much I knew? And everyday I knew more! Surely I would be able to add to their knowledge with one of my nuggets of wisdom. Surely they hadn't explored all of these mysteries before me, without me!

Cast of Common Characters

It struck me recently that the people that my Mom and I know in common are primarily from my Anaheim life that I left when I was eleven. (And there are more of them than you might think, since my Mom has kept in touch with them through missionary newsletters for twenty years.) For a short period of time, when I lived in Florida, I knew the people my Mom worked and socialized with, but many of those people have moved on as missionaries do, and now my Mom no longer works at Wycliffe. So we don't really talk about any of those people anymore.

This means that when I go home, the gossip that binds us is primarily about people that haven't really been a part of my life for twenty years. Nonetheless, I know who their kids are dating and marrying, when the babies are born, what the troubles are, if there's juicy news that somehow has made it into common knowledge, and that's about it. Basically, the life milestones: birth, marriage, death, and humiliation.

This has an interesting effect on me. I find I'm really curious for the news, like if I'm catching up on a TV show I only occasionally watch. But then my stomach starts to knot up. I feel so disconnected from these people, and yet I've been hearing their news all my life. I wonder what these people know about me--other than my marital and motherhood status. And I am left with the eerie feeling that the only thing that really matters is reaching the milestones. I find myself wondering what on earth these people are really like. What do they think about on a day-to-day basis? What embarrasses them? What do they wonder about? What questions haunt them?

But mostly, I'm noticing how hard it is to bridge the gap from the milestones to what makes me who I am when I talk to my Mom. And I've been wondering if this strange cast of characters--like ghosts or friends-once-removed--makes the gap feel bigger.

Rant

Well, I slept a sound sleep for the first time in three days last night, and I woke up after 9 1/2 hours of sleep feeling relieved somewhere deep inside. My mood improved with this rest. But I've continued to think on the movie I Am Legend, trying to figure out why it bothered me so much. I've come up with some theories which might be total crap, but you all get to hear them anyway. :) (spoiler alert, I'm giving away lots of details should you actually want to see the movie)

1. The enemy in the film evokes no pity or sympathy.
A genetically engineered virus that was created to cure cancer goes bad and kills off over 90% of the human race. A small minority are immune. A small minority turn into "dark seekers" which are ULTRA aggressive and then basically eat just about every left surviving human. Will Smith, amazing stud that he is, has managed to outwit these creatures--though as far as he knows he's the only human who is still standing.
The thing is, LOTS of these monstrous former humans are killed, shot, run over, blown up, etc. in the course of the movie, but the movie is designed to make you NOT care. They are like orcs, but without the history that at least gives orcs a shade of depth. One would have much more sympathy for a killed animal than one of these bad creatures. They are pure fear, and fear that we can feel good about obliterating. So the violence seems necessary, righteous even.

2. Will Smith--I can't even remember his character's name--is a flawless hero. It's one of those annoying American movies where even his "weak" moments just make you think, "aaahh, he has a sensitive side." Okay, maybe he's a little compulsive, but it all pays off in the end. And damn is he clever! After all, he managed to be the last human standing on the island of Manhattan.

3. Women and children are used in just the right way to make the men look so very sexy in their protector role. The hero has the obligatory wife and child, and they die in a tragic way, which of course propels him into his work. Until a new woman and child show up. And then he has to give his own life protecting them. And they can look innocent eyed and believe in God, even when the flawless hero has doubts.

And so all together, you get three mythologies which are common in American blockbuster movies, but which annoy me and disturb me deeply:
-absolute good facing off against absolute bad
-men acting tough and manly by killing
-women loving and needing in just the right dose to justify the killing and the tough and manly behavior

I don't like that these are the stories that my society most wants to tell itself.

Meet Small Snake

Perhaps you remember Firefly mentioning that I told a story about a small green snake that I had written last year. Well, I shared this story over Christmas with my Mom, and she surprised me by making and sending me a Small Snake puppet. Unfortunately, I ripped some of the stitching and he grew. So he's not so small. But you can see the way my Mom even made him a special skin to shed. It was an endearing gift.

Bad Mood

I am in a bad mood tonight. I am tired. I am breathing heavily. I watched I Am Legend today with Eric and our friend Paul and then ate at a strange time. I have been considering several posts, and want to write tonight, but I'm overcome by this mood. I really, really hope I can get a good nights sleep and shake this. It is so very irritating.

Happy New Year

I have been slow to return to the blogging front since leaving for Christmas in Florida. I've been caught up in my head, reflecting on my family and my future. Everything just felt too personal--either for me or on behalf of the people who inspired my thoughts--so I haven't written. But life is starting to get back to normal, and it's time to post again.

I'll start with a silly little anecdote. I've been trying some of my stories out on the kids I tutor when we walk to their home from the library. I taught them "The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" last month and they wanted to sing it again on Wednesday. Do you remember how for every animal she swallows, there's a little rhyming commentary? "How absurd to swallow a bird!" or "Imagine that, she swallowed a cat." Well, when we get to the end of the song, the kids never want to stop. So they don't say "horse" (she died of course), instead they give me some other animal, or a boy, or a girl. Then we try to make up the rhyme for their new animal. Such as "she swallowed that bear with all of his hair!" and "He threw down his toy when she swallowed that boy." Very silly, but a lot of fun. I love watching them take the reigns of the story.