The seasons turn, and life is wonderful and terrible and busy and quiet, and here I am yet again.
What a year it has been.
The only thing that is certain is change, and the year has been full of changes. My daughter went to school here, then there, and then back here. (Whew.) I have completed my first full year of teaching, overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to do the thing that I love *and they pay me for it*. My relationship with my family is still estranged, possibly forever. Our beloved old dog Shep crossed the rainbow bridge. I gained weight and lost fitness.
Mine is not a perfect life.
But, strangley, suprisingly, wonderously, I feel like I'm finally at home.
This story starts with a sewage flood in my basement.
A few weeks ago I woke up, put the coffee on, and decided to do a load of laundry. I carried the laundry basket downstairs, and at the bottom of the steps to the basement (the fully finished basement, half of my home's living space) I saw a disturbing liquid on the bamboo floors.
Yuck.
Beyond my disgust, I felt panicked. Horrified, but also utterly unable to deal with such a mess. With nausea bubbling in my stomach and a pain in my chest that momentarily made me question whether I was having a heart attack, I knew what I had to do: it was time to sell my home of seventeen years. I just couldn't handle it any more. There is so much work to do in an old house (mine was built in 1923) and as a single person on a teacher's salary, how could I ever handle it? Plus, the house is four bedrooms, and I don't need that kind of space for just my daughter (who will leave for college in a few short years) and myself. I don't even need a yard anymore, now that dear old Shep has gone.
I called a realtor friend and told her about my decision, and asked for her help. She ran comps, made suggestions about changes I should make in order to sell. (Paint this, stage that - you get the gist.) I spent hours online looking at smaller places nearby that would cost significantly less.
But in the meantime, I needed to deal with my basement. Thank GOODNESS I had recently had Roto-Rooter out to clean the line - annual maintenance that in some years I had not been able to afford, but just the week before I'd done it - and they guarantee their work for 60 days, so they came out to clean it again and determine the source of the blockage. They assured me that since this wasn't a maintenance issue, insurance would pay for damages and repairs, and sure enough, insurance agreed, and sent out a team to demo the basement, removing drywall, trim, and all of the flooring, in addition to the bathroom vanity etc.
Knowing that I'd need to sell the house, I realized that I should make some upgrades to the basement when the work was being done, so, heart pounding, I looked into getting a loan (HELOC) from the bank, figuring that I could do the upgrades for selling the house, then get the money back when I did so.
But getting a HELOC made my chest hurt even more. My whole life my father told me that I was bad with money, and I have heard his voice in my head for 49 years. I still operate as if at any moment I could lose everything, and I carry the belief that I am a hot mess financially.
I went to the bank mostly expecting to be turned down.
Instead, we ran credit checks - excellent. I asked for a sum that I thought was extraordinary and terrifying. They instantly suggested that I apply for double that amount. They held my hand, they assured me that all was well, and we even managed to reduce a credit card rate by 3%.
So now here I am, 49 years old, and it is occurring to me that I am not actually bad with money, that I am a good financial risk. I have a stable job with a continuing contract, doing work that I love with colleagues I adore, and in Washington State teachers got a raise this year.
The damages to the basement were extensive (currently I have concrete floors and studs for walls, and no second bathroom), and with insurance repairs and a bit of extra money it will look better than it has ever looked before when it's done in a couple (few?!) months. The repayment plan is manageable. I realized that not only could I afford to keep my house, but I really, really wanted to do so.
This house has seen so much of my life, including the worst years of my life, but also some of the best. This house has watched me grow and change. This house is the only home that my daughter has ever known. But more than that, this house is the center of my community. I know all my neighbors; I've eaten their food and shared mine. I've watched children grow up here; I've watched trees double in size. I have had a sea of children come through my front door, flopping on sofas, playing games, snacking. I have no idea how many sleepovers have occurred within these walls, or how many bottles of wine have been consumed around my table, but I do know that spontaneous gatherings occur with regularity.
My house has never been the nicest, or most fashionable, or largest, among my friends - I hang out with a successful crowd. But still, my house is a place that people want to be. There's always cheese and crackers for snacking, and there's that wonderful shady spot under the tree for relaxing in the back yard on sunny days, and the family room is just perfect for teenagers to munch on disgusting junk food and make a lot of noise.
I never thought it would be true, but having a sewage flood has turned out to be a good thing. It has reminded me how much I love my home, and it has taught me that actually, I am a grown up, I can handle my messes, and I can still make lemonade from lemons.
***
Two years ago, when my father informed me that he was ashamed to be my father (because of a political post I'd put on Facebook; needless to say, he is as much a fan of Trump's as I am horrified by Trump), I felt relieved that my father had put out in the open what I had suspected my whole life; I'd always known that he did not respect me or value my opinions. But at the same time, I felt adrift in the world: with his words, my father had basically disowned me and made it impossible for me to have a relationship with him, and I felt incredibly alone, adrift. I kept thinking that I didn't feel grounded, that I had no home to return to, that without a family I was alone and untethered. I was sure that I would be unable to withstand life's storms, without a husband or parents to support me, and that this was where I would finally show the world my shame that I was incapable.
The opposite has proved true.
I am flawed, imperfect, and some days I really am a hot mess. It's true; I don't have it all figured out, and the amount that I do not know is quite astounding. However, it's also true that I'm no more a hot mess than anyone else, and sometimes, I even have my act together.
My sewage flood reminded me of the possibilities of my home, and the possibilities for myself. Being awash in shit - there is no polite way to say it - gave me, quite literally, a chance for a clean start. Professional teams came in to sanitize everything, and now we're starting fresh, and it's going to be better than before.
This holiday season, my basement isn't a cozy oasis for watching silly Christmas movies, but it's okay. Right now, despite missing walls, a lack of doors, and concrete floors, we put the furniture back, and we can hang out there anyway. I don't need it to be perfect; I know it's a work in progress, like I am.
The home I'm seeking is here. The place I've longed to go to is here. My home, like me, is quirky and perhaps even unfashionable, but that's not all we are. We're welcoming, warm, playful, and real. There's space in my home, and my heart, for others. There are quiet spots for morning coffee alone in thought. There are plenty of chairs around the table for pots of chili to share, or board games.
I finally found home, seventeen years after I moved in. It took me a while to figure it out, but in these four walls, I'm figuring out who I am, and where I belong. I belong here. This place is beautiful, strong, a haven and a safe harbor. These walls have seen pain, but they've seen even more love and healing. The furniture might have been thrifted, and there are scratches, but the pieces are solid and functional and people tell me when they walk in my front door "ohhh it feels GOOD here."
It feels good in my home, and it feels good in my life. 49 years old, and I'm starting to learn what I'm really made of, and I'm starting to imagine my own potential.
It's never too late to go home - I just had to realize that home was of my own making.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Hygge Summer
This is my (sort-of) first teacher summer.
For the past six years, I've been working jobs with two weeks of vacation a year. One week for a camping vacation, a day or two for a kid's field trip, a long weekend, and a couple of days at the holidays, and that's all there was. When I had a vacation day, I felt like I must use every. single. second. because there wasn't a second to waste; I knew that if I didn't refuel my tank, I'd crash and burn, and I also knew that I had limited time to use my one "wild and precious life" and so I'd better get crackin'.
It seems that those days are over.
While I returned to teaching for a million reasons after my fourteen year absence, the primary reason being that teaching feels like going home to myself in the best possible way, I think I had underestimated how weary my work schedule had made me, and how incredible having a summer off would feel.
I have done some good things: I've gotten some little projects done, I've worked on physical fitness. I've read more. I've written a little. I've connected with friends.
This luxury of time - and knowing even in the midst of the longest vacation of the year that there are still other vacations awaiting me in other parts of the year - has change my body chemistry. I wake up a little in awe that this is my life, that I get to enjoy the gift of time in my life.
The best parts of my summer don't at all resemble a checklist. The best parts of my summer have looked slow, simple. I am having a child's summer, in some ways: I awaken when my body chooses (about 6-6:30am most days), I eat when I'm hungry (and not on some schedule), and I spend most of my time outdoors. I go for long walks and some hikes, I've swum in the ocean and in a lake, I've gone to the beach more times than I can count.
Today, I went to the library for the first time since, well, I can't remember the last time, but I no longer knew my library code so I had to get a new card. I thought about going downtown to the big, shiny, strange building with the red wormhole hallways and the diamond shaped glass everywhere, but instead, chose to go to my local library, a tiny little Carnegie Library not far from home. This library is so small that I spent an hour or so, and scanned the ENTIRE non-fiction section. I admired the brick work, the heavy wood doors, the light fixtures, the big windows. I sat in a cozy chair in close proximity to a fan (nobody to speak of has air conditioning in Seattle, and we're in a heatwave!), and I skimmed a book on hygge.
Reading the book in the comfortable, hometown library, no ticking clock to hold me accountable, my mind was free to wander, to pause, to ponder, without a race to the finish, without a drumbeat of orders (to, perhaps, go faster, accomplish something, remember the grocery list...) interfering.
Hygge is a relatively modern concept given to us by the Danes. The Cambridge Dictionary says this:
I think that, perhaps, it is the Danish version of simple living that we Americans have attempted but completely bungled.
In America, there's Real Simple Magazine. As far as I can tell, most of Real Simple is a product ad in disguise, encouraging me to spend thousands of dollars on making my life more simple. According to the articles, I should spend large portions of my life organizing my closets with boxes and light up clothing rods and matching baskets, and this would simplify things somehow. This is the American way: we try to buy our way out of problems.
I just don't think that matching baskets in my closet or laundry room are going to make me feel like my life is simpler. Sure, that sounds pretty, but life altering? Hardly.
What I want isn't rows of pretty boxes. Okay, I kind of want them, but what I KNOW is that even if I have rows of pretty boxes in my perfectly organized laundry room, and a vase of fresh flowers in there too, it won't actually make me happier.
And I really, really want to feel deeply, spiritually, wonderfully happy.
This summer, I've been reconnecting with the slower parts of me. I read an entire book in a single sitting, while at the beach. I've gone for long walks, not in exercise clothes, but in sundresses and flat sandals. I've eaten scads of nectarines and Rainier cherries and strawberries and other summer fruit. I've made jam. I have hosted a dozen "happy hours" at my house, usually just with one or two friends, sitting in the shade and sipping rose' wine. I've made pancakes (served, of course, with more summer fruit, and that home made jam). I've grilled, and grilled, and grilled. I've slept in the woods. I've dangled in a hammock. I strung garden lights across the garage, and I hung some candle lanterns under the deck. I've sat under those lanterns with friends, and I can't think of anything more hygge right now.
Today, in the library, sitting next to an old man who was dressed in slacks and a button down shirt with a tie, and a trim, polished older woman who was reading the Wall Street Journal and Cook's Illustrated, I browsed the entire book of hygge, checked out a Japanese cookbook and another beach read. I felt the fan cool my skin, and I sipped my home made iced tea, ice cubes rattling in the insulated flask. That felt pretty hygge.
I know that if I didn't ever work, this would become dull and I'd have to come up with some project of purpose and meaning. But, because I do work, and I work hard, and because life is so often complicated and messy, I've been just soaking up this downtime and loving every single second of it. I've started to hear my own voice a bit louder. I don't feel frenetic, or worried, or anxious. I feel peaceful, and hopeful.
For the rest of the summer, my goal is to find ways to take this feeling with me.
I can't spend everyday cozied up in a public library, or reading on a beach, or lounging in a hammock. Not every day allows for a couple of hours in the woods and on the beach, and not every day is sunny. I know this as well as anyone. However, I am convinced that I can take some of this with me.
I am determined to love my life, this only life that I am given. A life of quiet desperation is just not for me.
To keep this feeling going, I have a few ideas. On the easy end of the spectrum: I need to read more, look at screens less. (I read the old fashioned way, with books made out of paper.) I love reading, but this year with my mind so occupied with my new job and the worries of having a daughter start at two different high schools, I lost my way. I've realized that it's okay to read a bit of fluff - a book on hygge, a beach read - in addition to the more serious things I'm drawn to, and that with that permission, I won't be too tired to read such relaxing pieces. I need to keep spending time outside, and yes, I know that in Seattle in January the sky hovers inches above our heads and it's dark when I go to work and dark when I come home again, but I also know that morning stars are beautiful, that I have good gear (no bad weather, only bad gear: that's what Gore-Tex is for). The chill of the air, the rain, and the dark are just a different way to experience the world, and have their own kind of beauty, and they fill my soul, too. These two things alone will likely sustain me better than the year before.
This summer I packed my car with beach chairs, blankets, towels, and what I jokingly refer to as my "emergency picnic" - an insulated bag that I've packed with a cutting board, knife, enamelware dishes for two, crackers, and shelf-stable jars of dolmas, eggplant dip, bruschetta. (The idea is that I have the basics, but with that foundation I can throw in a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese, some fruit, and voila' - gourmet picnic, no fuss!) I've decided that I never, ever want to miss the opportunity to have a picnic, and on one of those lucky moments when a friend and I bump into one another, it is just too wonderful to miss a chance to pop down onto the beach and stick our toes in the water and enjoy dinner. Such moments are more frequent that one might think, because I make them happen.
I want to be the person who stays up late to see the stars, who walks on the beach even when it's raining, who always invites the friend in for a visit. There are a dozen kinds of tea in the cupboard, wine in the wine rack, and I can rustle up something from the fridge - so come in.
Today, I'm not dreaming of big accomplishments. I'm not plotting my novel, or how to elevate next year's AP scores, or how to drop 15 pounds, or some giant house project. Today, it feels remarkably important to dream small: candlelit dinners, board games, walking outdoors, important and unimportant books, cups of tea.
I'm bringing it to work, too. I found a chair with a free sign in my neighborhood, and I hauled it into my classroom and tucked it in a corner next to the big bookcase full of pleasure reading books. I took the framed picture of a woman reading out of my attic and hung it next to the chair, and then I found a lamp with a free sign. I purchased a little metal and glass table designed for outdoors ($7.50!), brought in a Harry Potter Marauder's Map blanket, and my hygge corner - designed, hopefully, to help students love reading, and to have a cozy place to hang out sometimes, but also for me to curl up and read or grade - is complete.
It is a hygge summer, and I am delighted at the prospect of a hygge life. I think it's mine for the taking. I think I - and millions of Danish people - am onto something.
For the past six years, I've been working jobs with two weeks of vacation a year. One week for a camping vacation, a day or two for a kid's field trip, a long weekend, and a couple of days at the holidays, and that's all there was. When I had a vacation day, I felt like I must use every. single. second. because there wasn't a second to waste; I knew that if I didn't refuel my tank, I'd crash and burn, and I also knew that I had limited time to use my one "wild and precious life" and so I'd better get crackin'.
It seems that those days are over.
While I returned to teaching for a million reasons after my fourteen year absence, the primary reason being that teaching feels like going home to myself in the best possible way, I think I had underestimated how weary my work schedule had made me, and how incredible having a summer off would feel.
I have done some good things: I've gotten some little projects done, I've worked on physical fitness. I've read more. I've written a little. I've connected with friends.
This luxury of time - and knowing even in the midst of the longest vacation of the year that there are still other vacations awaiting me in other parts of the year - has change my body chemistry. I wake up a little in awe that this is my life, that I get to enjoy the gift of time in my life.
The best parts of my summer don't at all resemble a checklist. The best parts of my summer have looked slow, simple. I am having a child's summer, in some ways: I awaken when my body chooses (about 6-6:30am most days), I eat when I'm hungry (and not on some schedule), and I spend most of my time outdoors. I go for long walks and some hikes, I've swum in the ocean and in a lake, I've gone to the beach more times than I can count.
Today, I went to the library for the first time since, well, I can't remember the last time, but I no longer knew my library code so I had to get a new card. I thought about going downtown to the big, shiny, strange building with the red wormhole hallways and the diamond shaped glass everywhere, but instead, chose to go to my local library, a tiny little Carnegie Library not far from home. This library is so small that I spent an hour or so, and scanned the ENTIRE non-fiction section. I admired the brick work, the heavy wood doors, the light fixtures, the big windows. I sat in a cozy chair in close proximity to a fan (nobody to speak of has air conditioning in Seattle, and we're in a heatwave!), and I skimmed a book on hygge.
Reading the book in the comfortable, hometown library, no ticking clock to hold me accountable, my mind was free to wander, to pause, to ponder, without a race to the finish, without a drumbeat of orders (to, perhaps, go faster, accomplish something, remember the grocery list...) interfering.
Hygge is a relatively modern concept given to us by the Danes. The Cambridge Dictionary says this:
In America, there's Real Simple Magazine. As far as I can tell, most of Real Simple is a product ad in disguise, encouraging me to spend thousands of dollars on making my life more simple. According to the articles, I should spend large portions of my life organizing my closets with boxes and light up clothing rods and matching baskets, and this would simplify things somehow. This is the American way: we try to buy our way out of problems.
I just don't think that matching baskets in my closet or laundry room are going to make me feel like my life is simpler. Sure, that sounds pretty, but life altering? Hardly.
What I want isn't rows of pretty boxes. Okay, I kind of want them, but what I KNOW is that even if I have rows of pretty boxes in my perfectly organized laundry room, and a vase of fresh flowers in there too, it won't actually make me happier.
And I really, really want to feel deeply, spiritually, wonderfully happy.
This summer, I've been reconnecting with the slower parts of me. I read an entire book in a single sitting, while at the beach. I've gone for long walks, not in exercise clothes, but in sundresses and flat sandals. I've eaten scads of nectarines and Rainier cherries and strawberries and other summer fruit. I've made jam. I have hosted a dozen "happy hours" at my house, usually just with one or two friends, sitting in the shade and sipping rose' wine. I've made pancakes (served, of course, with more summer fruit, and that home made jam). I've grilled, and grilled, and grilled. I've slept in the woods. I've dangled in a hammock. I strung garden lights across the garage, and I hung some candle lanterns under the deck. I've sat under those lanterns with friends, and I can't think of anything more hygge right now.
Today, in the library, sitting next to an old man who was dressed in slacks and a button down shirt with a tie, and a trim, polished older woman who was reading the Wall Street Journal and Cook's Illustrated, I browsed the entire book of hygge, checked out a Japanese cookbook and another beach read. I felt the fan cool my skin, and I sipped my home made iced tea, ice cubes rattling in the insulated flask. That felt pretty hygge.
I know that if I didn't ever work, this would become dull and I'd have to come up with some project of purpose and meaning. But, because I do work, and I work hard, and because life is so often complicated and messy, I've been just soaking up this downtime and loving every single second of it. I've started to hear my own voice a bit louder. I don't feel frenetic, or worried, or anxious. I feel peaceful, and hopeful.
For the rest of the summer, my goal is to find ways to take this feeling with me.
I can't spend everyday cozied up in a public library, or reading on a beach, or lounging in a hammock. Not every day allows for a couple of hours in the woods and on the beach, and not every day is sunny. I know this as well as anyone. However, I am convinced that I can take some of this with me.
I am determined to love my life, this only life that I am given. A life of quiet desperation is just not for me.
To keep this feeling going, I have a few ideas. On the easy end of the spectrum: I need to read more, look at screens less. (I read the old fashioned way, with books made out of paper.) I love reading, but this year with my mind so occupied with my new job and the worries of having a daughter start at two different high schools, I lost my way. I've realized that it's okay to read a bit of fluff - a book on hygge, a beach read - in addition to the more serious things I'm drawn to, and that with that permission, I won't be too tired to read such relaxing pieces. I need to keep spending time outside, and yes, I know that in Seattle in January the sky hovers inches above our heads and it's dark when I go to work and dark when I come home again, but I also know that morning stars are beautiful, that I have good gear (no bad weather, only bad gear: that's what Gore-Tex is for). The chill of the air, the rain, and the dark are just a different way to experience the world, and have their own kind of beauty, and they fill my soul, too. These two things alone will likely sustain me better than the year before.
This summer I packed my car with beach chairs, blankets, towels, and what I jokingly refer to as my "emergency picnic" - an insulated bag that I've packed with a cutting board, knife, enamelware dishes for two, crackers, and shelf-stable jars of dolmas, eggplant dip, bruschetta. (The idea is that I have the basics, but with that foundation I can throw in a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese, some fruit, and voila' - gourmet picnic, no fuss!) I've decided that I never, ever want to miss the opportunity to have a picnic, and on one of those lucky moments when a friend and I bump into one another, it is just too wonderful to miss a chance to pop down onto the beach and stick our toes in the water and enjoy dinner. Such moments are more frequent that one might think, because I make them happen.
I want to be the person who stays up late to see the stars, who walks on the beach even when it's raining, who always invites the friend in for a visit. There are a dozen kinds of tea in the cupboard, wine in the wine rack, and I can rustle up something from the fridge - so come in.
Today, I'm not dreaming of big accomplishments. I'm not plotting my novel, or how to elevate next year's AP scores, or how to drop 15 pounds, or some giant house project. Today, it feels remarkably important to dream small: candlelit dinners, board games, walking outdoors, important and unimportant books, cups of tea.
I'm bringing it to work, too. I found a chair with a free sign in my neighborhood, and I hauled it into my classroom and tucked it in a corner next to the big bookcase full of pleasure reading books. I took the framed picture of a woman reading out of my attic and hung it next to the chair, and then I found a lamp with a free sign. I purchased a little metal and glass table designed for outdoors ($7.50!), brought in a Harry Potter Marauder's Map blanket, and my hygge corner - designed, hopefully, to help students love reading, and to have a cozy place to hang out sometimes, but also for me to curl up and read or grade - is complete.
It is a hygge summer, and I am delighted at the prospect of a hygge life. I think it's mine for the taking. I think I - and millions of Danish people - am onto something.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Small
I have always longed for a grand, larger than life kind of life. When I was born, my beloved grandfather instantly took to calling me "little princess" and I took it to heart. I was relatively unfamiliar with Disney princesses, but, because I was born in Canada, I was quite familiar with the Queen. To me, being a princess meant world travel, always looking sharp, exploring the ideas of the world, being extremely well read, and participating in the gentlewomanly pursuit of helping the poor.
(Castles and jewels and ballgowns were a bonus, of course, but the Queen and her court that I saw in the news growing up wore sensible dresses and sensible shoes, and were constantly showing up at some ceremony or another and giving public speeches, accepting flowers from small children and smiling at all of the townspeople, meeting with government officials and listening solemnly.)
The minute I could, I fought to escape my small life - untraveled, not terribly well read or educated, not exposed to the worlds of ideas available through the news or books or experiences - and to broaden my horizons. Despite the protestations of my parents, I left the family business, and I went to the biggest college I could access (the University of Washington), and found a job to put me through college at the most cosmopolitan, big company I could find (Microsoft). I lived on Top Ramen and I kept my heat turned off even in a snowstorm that shut down the city, because I couldn't afford to pay for it if I turned it on....but I still managed to put together my pennies and buy a ticket to Europe and spend a summer exploring part of the bigger world. (Back then, airfare and a Eurorail pass aside, I budgeted $50 a day for the trip, including food, accommodations, entertainment, and souvenirs. I sometimes stayed in youth hostels, and sometimes took overnight trains to my next destination, sleeping upright in my seat, to save time and money.) I saw castles, cathedrals, museums, architecture, and art that I'd only ever seen in books before. I swam in the Mediterranean in the moonlight with a handsome Australian; I hiked in Switzerland; I met people from all over the world and listened to dozens of languages around me. At first, I felt terrified - this was incredibly foreign and unsettling - and then I felt at home. At last I felt that I was in the world made for me.
I was able to return to Europe a few times. My world got bigger; I finished my undergraduate degree, got a job working with incredibly smart people who came from worlds bigger than mine. Deciding that life wasn't for me (the people were fine, but I was in software sales, and nothing interests me less!) I went back to school, trading in my economics degree for an English degree, and following it up with a masters so that I could teach, and my world grew again: now I was immersed in the world of ideas, traveling time and space to soak up all of the humanity, art, and philosophy that was available to me. My world kept growing.
It came to a bit of a crashing halt, however, when I got cancer and my marriage fell apart. (Side note: on the outside, it probably looks like cancer hastened the end of my marriage. I think that the reality is that it was doomed from the start, and cancer only revealed the truth, didn't create it.) My world shrank, first to hospitals and shrinking budgets, and then again when I found myself a single mom re-entering the workforce after years of being a cancer-stay-at-home-mom. My world got tiny. It was all that I could do to stay afloat, to keep the wheels of my life turning, to stay on top of the basic tasks of housing myself and my daughter, making food, getting her homework done.
I'm sure it would have been difficult for anyone. For me, aside from all of the obvious pains of a body recovering from cancer and a life healing from divorce, watching my world shrink was a source of horror that amplified the rest. As my daughter grew, I realized that I did not have the ability to take her to see the world, to broaden her world and grow it for her in a way my parents had not for me. Aside from trips to my office, I felt like my world had shrunk down to the size of my neighborhood, a lovely place, but so, so small.
I wish I could tell you that this story had run its course, and that the final arc of the story is that I got it all figured out, and that I had a trip to South Korea planned for the spring and a trip to New York in the winter and then a return to Europe...but this is not the case.
I'm a single mom, and I'm a teacher who is low on the pay scale because of all those years I was away from teaching. I've managed to hold on to my big old house - purchased in 2001 when my life was oh so different - in a good neighborhood, and I pay all of my bills, but my paycheck dictates that my world is not so large. I rarely get a chance to go on an airplane, to stay in a hotel, to leave my small corner. There have been times when this made me claustrophobic.
However... Yes, of course there is a however.
Several things allow me access to the greater world, and to a return to my childhood fantasies of the big, big world that awaited me in adulthood.
One is reading. I read whatever I can get my hands on, from as many different perspectives as I can, and my sense of the world grows with every word. I travel back and forth in time, across continents, across genders, across socio-economic lines, and I get to see the world in all its glory. While this may be a mirror of the world and not the world itself, it shows me my place in this world - I am a part of the big picture, I am a citizen of the whole world, not just of my corner. I also read the news, subscribing to the Washington Post and the New York Times, big city newspapers from the other side of the country, talking about Big Ideas. Thanks to the internet, I dip my toe into The Guardian and The Sun and Al Jazeera; I follow political leaders like Trudeau, Macron and Merkel, and I see what they have to say about the world, and my world grows as a result. (I try not to be too Euro-centric, but I'm working on it.)
The other is making my small place in the world the biggest it can be.
While I may not be able to cross continents and sit in opera houses, while I may not be able to experience trekking in Nepal, while I might not be able to stand at Machu Pichu, I do have the spaces nearby, and while others speak casually of them, I am determine to suck the marrow from life in the spaces I am granted. I try to remember that I live in a world class city (Seattle), that I am surrounded by extraordinary beauty with our mountains, oceans, and lakes, and I try to remember to soak it up. I have become an avid backpacker, hiker, and camper. When my small tent is high on a mountain and the stars come out, I am certain that I have discovered nirvana; when I view the milky way from this vantage point, it is the earth that seems small, but I am a part of the stars, exactly where I am meant to be. I may not be able to go to the Louvre or the Prado, or to stand in Red Square or Tiananean Square, but I can go to the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye. I may not head to Broadway to see the latest, but I have learned how to find tickets the day of show for a reduced fee, or, thanks to Teentix, to go on a Sunday for just five dollars with my teen daughter.
I teach children (high schoolers) whose worlds are, in some ways, bigger than mine: they come from all corners of the globe, and on average they are a very wealthy community filled with Important People; they are more widely traveled at 16 than I am at 48. I've realized that they expand my world, too: they share tales of their adventures with me, and I learn, but more, I share tales of the world with them, and they start to notice how big my world is - so many ideas! - and they grow, too.
I write this from the sofa of a cabin overlooking the most gorgeous view in the San Juans, thanks to a beloved friend who regularly invites me to share in her fortune at owning such a lovely spot. I sip my morning coffee out of a hand painted mug made in Portugal, I see the boats fishing in the bay in front of us. It is a small place, a little niche in the world, tucked into the side of a hill, away from the hustle and bustle of the world. It would be easy to say that it is small, insignificant, unimportant. Perhaps it is.
But I don't think so.
Sitting on this sofa with the morning sun streaming in, surrounded by the happy clutter of a family vacation spot, I have been thinking about the world and my place in it, and I feel a part of the world, no less significant than if I were a regular at Buckingham Palace. Writing to you, here, I feel immersed in the world of ideas, a contributor, and I think perhaps that I'm not so small and insignificant after all.
My world is grand because I want it to be. My world is magnificent because I take the time to haul my tent out of the attic, to find a spot where I am close to the stars, and to bundle up against the cold to really admire them. My world is grand because I always have a book in my purse or backpack in case I have a little downtime. My world is grand because everywhere I go, I'm interested in talking to new people, hearing new stories. My world is grand because I am unafraid to dive into the sharp cold of Puget Sound, and because I have as many picnics as possible. My world is grand because I have opinions, based in knowledge, about economic theory and social justice and what to do about the great Pacific garbage gyre. My world is grand because I know interesting people who do interesting things, and who struggle and let me peep in at their struggle to share it.
I still want to go back to Europe. I want to go all over Asia. I want to see those prayer flags strung from mountain tops, and I want to sit in a cobalt and white courtyard looking over the Adriatic, and I want to wander the moors, and I want to see the Lagos that Chimamanda showed me. I want to be a regular on Broadway.
In some ways, I am, simply because I ponder the possibilities.
My life is not small.
I have no idea what an outsider sees when they see my life, but my life is not small. My inner life is bursting, hopeful, filled with ideas and wonderings, and my body is eager to wander. (Yesterday, miscalculating distances, I went for an eight mile walk/hike that took me to a beach filled with sea treasures like chitons and sea stars; I gazed at the incredible beauty of clusters of madronas; I took pictures of the pebbles at the edge of the shore, smooth and polished and in so many colors. Thank goodness for a body that will allow such adventures.)
I will suck the marrow from the life I am given. Instead of waiting for some windfall, some big adventure, I will create adventure where I can find it. I will rent a kayak by the hour and see what the bay looks like from out there; I will head to the library to see what treasures await. I will sip my coffee as I stare out the window, and ponder how I can help the world to heal.
I know people with more who have much less.
I still think, someday, somehow, I will find myself hut hiking in the Alps, visiting monks in Nepal, attending La Scala, a regular on Broadway. It's still possible, and I'm not giving up on it. But meanwhile, I refuse a life of quiet desperation. I am going to boldly lap up all that is placed before me, finding the joys large and small that are available to me in life. I will not squander the possibility that I already have enough, so that I might truly experience what is placed before me.
Perhaps my small life is quite grand, after all.
(Castles and jewels and ballgowns were a bonus, of course, but the Queen and her court that I saw in the news growing up wore sensible dresses and sensible shoes, and were constantly showing up at some ceremony or another and giving public speeches, accepting flowers from small children and smiling at all of the townspeople, meeting with government officials and listening solemnly.)
The minute I could, I fought to escape my small life - untraveled, not terribly well read or educated, not exposed to the worlds of ideas available through the news or books or experiences - and to broaden my horizons. Despite the protestations of my parents, I left the family business, and I went to the biggest college I could access (the University of Washington), and found a job to put me through college at the most cosmopolitan, big company I could find (Microsoft). I lived on Top Ramen and I kept my heat turned off even in a snowstorm that shut down the city, because I couldn't afford to pay for it if I turned it on....but I still managed to put together my pennies and buy a ticket to Europe and spend a summer exploring part of the bigger world. (Back then, airfare and a Eurorail pass aside, I budgeted $50 a day for the trip, including food, accommodations, entertainment, and souvenirs. I sometimes stayed in youth hostels, and sometimes took overnight trains to my next destination, sleeping upright in my seat, to save time and money.) I saw castles, cathedrals, museums, architecture, and art that I'd only ever seen in books before. I swam in the Mediterranean in the moonlight with a handsome Australian; I hiked in Switzerland; I met people from all over the world and listened to dozens of languages around me. At first, I felt terrified - this was incredibly foreign and unsettling - and then I felt at home. At last I felt that I was in the world made for me.
I was able to return to Europe a few times. My world got bigger; I finished my undergraduate degree, got a job working with incredibly smart people who came from worlds bigger than mine. Deciding that life wasn't for me (the people were fine, but I was in software sales, and nothing interests me less!) I went back to school, trading in my economics degree for an English degree, and following it up with a masters so that I could teach, and my world grew again: now I was immersed in the world of ideas, traveling time and space to soak up all of the humanity, art, and philosophy that was available to me. My world kept growing.
It came to a bit of a crashing halt, however, when I got cancer and my marriage fell apart. (Side note: on the outside, it probably looks like cancer hastened the end of my marriage. I think that the reality is that it was doomed from the start, and cancer only revealed the truth, didn't create it.) My world shrank, first to hospitals and shrinking budgets, and then again when I found myself a single mom re-entering the workforce after years of being a cancer-stay-at-home-mom. My world got tiny. It was all that I could do to stay afloat, to keep the wheels of my life turning, to stay on top of the basic tasks of housing myself and my daughter, making food, getting her homework done.
I'm sure it would have been difficult for anyone. For me, aside from all of the obvious pains of a body recovering from cancer and a life healing from divorce, watching my world shrink was a source of horror that amplified the rest. As my daughter grew, I realized that I did not have the ability to take her to see the world, to broaden her world and grow it for her in a way my parents had not for me. Aside from trips to my office, I felt like my world had shrunk down to the size of my neighborhood, a lovely place, but so, so small.
I wish I could tell you that this story had run its course, and that the final arc of the story is that I got it all figured out, and that I had a trip to South Korea planned for the spring and a trip to New York in the winter and then a return to Europe...but this is not the case.
I'm a single mom, and I'm a teacher who is low on the pay scale because of all those years I was away from teaching. I've managed to hold on to my big old house - purchased in 2001 when my life was oh so different - in a good neighborhood, and I pay all of my bills, but my paycheck dictates that my world is not so large. I rarely get a chance to go on an airplane, to stay in a hotel, to leave my small corner. There have been times when this made me claustrophobic.
However... Yes, of course there is a however.
Several things allow me access to the greater world, and to a return to my childhood fantasies of the big, big world that awaited me in adulthood.
One is reading. I read whatever I can get my hands on, from as many different perspectives as I can, and my sense of the world grows with every word. I travel back and forth in time, across continents, across genders, across socio-economic lines, and I get to see the world in all its glory. While this may be a mirror of the world and not the world itself, it shows me my place in this world - I am a part of the big picture, I am a citizen of the whole world, not just of my corner. I also read the news, subscribing to the Washington Post and the New York Times, big city newspapers from the other side of the country, talking about Big Ideas. Thanks to the internet, I dip my toe into The Guardian and The Sun and Al Jazeera; I follow political leaders like Trudeau, Macron and Merkel, and I see what they have to say about the world, and my world grows as a result. (I try not to be too Euro-centric, but I'm working on it.)
The other is making my small place in the world the biggest it can be.
While I may not be able to cross continents and sit in opera houses, while I may not be able to experience trekking in Nepal, while I might not be able to stand at Machu Pichu, I do have the spaces nearby, and while others speak casually of them, I am determine to suck the marrow from life in the spaces I am granted. I try to remember that I live in a world class city (Seattle), that I am surrounded by extraordinary beauty with our mountains, oceans, and lakes, and I try to remember to soak it up. I have become an avid backpacker, hiker, and camper. When my small tent is high on a mountain and the stars come out, I am certain that I have discovered nirvana; when I view the milky way from this vantage point, it is the earth that seems small, but I am a part of the stars, exactly where I am meant to be. I may not be able to go to the Louvre or the Prado, or to stand in Red Square or Tiananean Square, but I can go to the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye. I may not head to Broadway to see the latest, but I have learned how to find tickets the day of show for a reduced fee, or, thanks to Teentix, to go on a Sunday for just five dollars with my teen daughter.
I teach children (high schoolers) whose worlds are, in some ways, bigger than mine: they come from all corners of the globe, and on average they are a very wealthy community filled with Important People; they are more widely traveled at 16 than I am at 48. I've realized that they expand my world, too: they share tales of their adventures with me, and I learn, but more, I share tales of the world with them, and they start to notice how big my world is - so many ideas! - and they grow, too.
I write this from the sofa of a cabin overlooking the most gorgeous view in the San Juans, thanks to a beloved friend who regularly invites me to share in her fortune at owning such a lovely spot. I sip my morning coffee out of a hand painted mug made in Portugal, I see the boats fishing in the bay in front of us. It is a small place, a little niche in the world, tucked into the side of a hill, away from the hustle and bustle of the world. It would be easy to say that it is small, insignificant, unimportant. Perhaps it is.
But I don't think so.
Sitting on this sofa with the morning sun streaming in, surrounded by the happy clutter of a family vacation spot, I have been thinking about the world and my place in it, and I feel a part of the world, no less significant than if I were a regular at Buckingham Palace. Writing to you, here, I feel immersed in the world of ideas, a contributor, and I think perhaps that I'm not so small and insignificant after all.
My world is grand because I want it to be. My world is magnificent because I take the time to haul my tent out of the attic, to find a spot where I am close to the stars, and to bundle up against the cold to really admire them. My world is grand because I always have a book in my purse or backpack in case I have a little downtime. My world is grand because everywhere I go, I'm interested in talking to new people, hearing new stories. My world is grand because I am unafraid to dive into the sharp cold of Puget Sound, and because I have as many picnics as possible. My world is grand because I have opinions, based in knowledge, about economic theory and social justice and what to do about the great Pacific garbage gyre. My world is grand because I know interesting people who do interesting things, and who struggle and let me peep in at their struggle to share it.
I still want to go back to Europe. I want to go all over Asia. I want to see those prayer flags strung from mountain tops, and I want to sit in a cobalt and white courtyard looking over the Adriatic, and I want to wander the moors, and I want to see the Lagos that Chimamanda showed me. I want to be a regular on Broadway.
In some ways, I am, simply because I ponder the possibilities.
My life is not small.
I have no idea what an outsider sees when they see my life, but my life is not small. My inner life is bursting, hopeful, filled with ideas and wonderings, and my body is eager to wander. (Yesterday, miscalculating distances, I went for an eight mile walk/hike that took me to a beach filled with sea treasures like chitons and sea stars; I gazed at the incredible beauty of clusters of madronas; I took pictures of the pebbles at the edge of the shore, smooth and polished and in so many colors. Thank goodness for a body that will allow such adventures.)
I will suck the marrow from the life I am given. Instead of waiting for some windfall, some big adventure, I will create adventure where I can find it. I will rent a kayak by the hour and see what the bay looks like from out there; I will head to the library to see what treasures await. I will sip my coffee as I stare out the window, and ponder how I can help the world to heal.
I know people with more who have much less.
I still think, someday, somehow, I will find myself hut hiking in the Alps, visiting monks in Nepal, attending La Scala, a regular on Broadway. It's still possible, and I'm not giving up on it. But meanwhile, I refuse a life of quiet desperation. I am going to boldly lap up all that is placed before me, finding the joys large and small that are available to me in life. I will not squander the possibility that I already have enough, so that I might truly experience what is placed before me.
Perhaps my small life is quite grand, after all.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
Independence
Happy Fourth of July, everyone.
This morning I fell down a Twitter-hole, but for once I don't have any regrets. Somebody posted the Langston Hughes poem, I, Too, and then I wanted to read Whitman and then I found some new poems, and all of them were celebrating America and recoiling from the broken promises and rejoicing in the hope of promises one day kept.
(To fall down the same rabbit hole, check out https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/145066/july-4th-poems and https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_occasion_tid=1812 and don't forget to read this brilliant, heartbreaking speech by Frederick Douglass: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/)
While Angelica Schuyler sang it best thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton:
https://mrbrentweaver.wordpress.com/angelica-schuyler-hamilton/
(key passage at 1:35)... I have always felt, well, confused by my role as a woman in America.
When the Founding Fathers said that "all men are created equal" they did not mean it, and nor did they expect anyone else to believe it. Thinking people knew what they meant. Men was not code for humankind, although we like to pretend that that was their intent. No, men meant men, and it did not mean women. Men meant white-Christian-men-of-property-and-class, land owners, the educated. Those who fell outside of those descriptions, by gender or skin tone or finances, were not considered fully human. If a woman was lucky enough to be born white and wealthy, and have a good marriage with a husband who valued her opinion, she might expect to have some influence within her own household...but even this feels optimistic and slightly foolish to me. Women knew their place, and even when they were allowed to speak up,speaking up meant they needed to tread softly and tiptoe around the male egos in their lives. I know this is true because I read history, but also because though we've had vast improvements, movements like #MeToo have proven, if nothing else, that women are expected to take what is dished out to them or else; certainly that has been my experience. Modern women are expected to celebrate their equality, but are penalized for asking for raises; we are taught to come home from work and make dinner and clean up and care for the children and to express undying gratitude to our husbands if they deign to put a few dishes in the dishwasher or change a diaper or read a bedtime story, nevermind that there are pots that need to be scrubbed and lunches made and school paperwork to complete and, well, you get the idea. How many women have heard a voice call from the sofa to the kitchen, "Oh, did you need something?" in oblivion of the truth of how dinner lands on the table each night?
Of course, it was worse for women who did not have the advantages that the founding fathers assumed when they wrote so beautifully about equality. Sally Hemings was three years old when the document was written; thirteen years later she would be impregnated by thirty-six year old widowed man (he was married to her half sister, by the way; Sally Hemings was born a slave but was 3/4 white) and Declaration author Thomas Jefferson in 1789. I wonder what it felt like to Ms. Hemings to hear Jefferson speak of equality and the pursuit of happiness, when she was a slave and a concubine who had to fight for the freedom of her children and who was forced, because of "propriety" to hide in back rooms?
Our American roots are full of hope, grand ideals, optimism, eloquence, and the promise of joy, but they are also home to mold and rot. The same people who declared our right to a pursuit of happiness so solemnly and hopefully did not see most people as people.
I recognize my own privilege. My race, class, and education protect me from many of the sorrows of the world. When my blue eyed, fair skinned daughter goes out into the world, I know that police will leap to her aid if she requires it; I expect to be admitted to any place I care to go without a second glance. I can jaywalk without fear (suspecting that a "oops, sorry Officer!" and a smile will be enough). And yet, because my sex means that I am less likely to hold high position, to receive the salary I deserve, to be acknowledged at the conference table or the political position, or to walk down the street free of harrassment, I have a hint of what it might mean to have further erosions into my sense of equality. Because I know the bitterness of not being quite equal, I can speculate what someone without my privilege might experience, and I feel rage.
Rage.
Not a slight disappointment, not frustration, not confusion, but white-hot-burns-the-world-to-ash RAGE.
How dare we do this to people? These are somebody's children. I'm a mother, and there is almost nothing I would not sacrifice for my daughter's safety. How do parents bear it when they send their black boys into the world, knowing that they can be shot for holding up a phone, that the police will be called if they mow the neighbor's lawn? How can they bear it? I know that they cannot. I can feel the bile in their throats as they are forced to go about their business, eating and sleeping and working and trying, knowing that this is how the world works.
When I got married, my father told me that he was glad I was marrying a white person. Even then (another lifetime ago), I was shocked, horrified. I often contemplate the comment, which he made in a thoughtless, offhand, unimportant way. I look at my own daughter, and contemplate her far-off, future spouse, and I think of his words, and how it felt to hear his words, and what I might say to my daughter near her wedding day. Repulsed by his sentiment, I see it differently. I see that my daughter might marry a black or brown man (or woman - why not?), and that my grandchildren might have dark skin, Afros, slave heritage. I imagine the love that I feel for my daughter and the love that I will feel for my grandchildren, and I imagine holding these future, beloved grandchildren and staring into their beautiful, dark eyes, and though these children are imaginary, I want to protect them with every fiber of my being. I feel fierce and protective of my daughter, and of her someday children, her someday spouse. I want to look my grandchildren in the eye and tell them that I have helped to shape that the world that they live in, so that they feel safe and loved and welcome.
So, even though it's not personal, it's personal. I have no idea who (or if) my daughter will marry; she is a high school student with hopes and dreams but with no clarity about the future and she's still working out high school romance, let alone life-long partnership; only time will reveal her path, her love, her family. Still, the possibility exists.
America was created in great part by Thomas Jefferson, by Martha Jefferson (lacking formal education, a widow already when she married Jefferson at 24, half sister to slaves), by Sally Hemings and her six children from a man who owned her and never married her, though they lived together. Thomas Jefferson's choices were the ones that shaped the nation, but Martha and Sally's stories are just as important, true, and relevant to the America that we live in today.
Martha loved her husband, the documents show. Her husband, who crafted the nation with no place for women, loved her back, perhaps never even considering the idea that his beloved wife might be his equal, deserving of equality in the workplace, the voting booth, the court, the bedroom, the home.
It is the tension between Jefferson's words and actions that continues to define the tensions in society today. We are a country of great ideals that has failed to live up to those ideals. We are optimists; we like the ideas behind the words, and so we continue to refer to them, to hold up the words as proof of what we're capable of. The words offer comfort, a child's story before bedtime, soothing, hopeful, but because we are not children, we know that the author of those words gave them as fiction, not the non-fiction that we long for. We know that the phrasing, though poetic, intentionally leaves out a minimum of 50% of the population. We know what he said, but we know what we know, and that his words are tinted more with politeness than truth. I do not think that Jefferson likely changed a diaper, and I wonder if he knew a woman's anatomy well enough to be a decent lover, or if his wife was required to put up with his bumbling because that was just expected. Did he see his wife as an equal in intellect and potential, or simply as a person placed on the earth to make his own life more pleasant?
When Thomas wrote "all men are created equal," I wonder if Martha thought, "Me, too." I wonder if Sally thought, "Me, too." I wonder if these women were bitter when they heard the words, or if they shook their heads and thought, "if only you really understood!" I wonder what their children thought? I wonder if Martha's children knew, in that way that children have of knowing, that Sally's quarters were connected to Thomas'. I wonder if the Brady-bunch style children saw their family resemblances as sibling-cousins. I wonder how Thomas treated his second-six children behind closed doors, and if there were ever Christmases around the tree with all twelve of his children. (I think I know the answer to this, as do you, but the history books do not reveal the answer.)
While the #MeToo movement is about men's sexual aggression toward women (and, just for the record...#metoo), I think it's an apt description of the political uprisings we see now, in 2018, from those who believe in Jefferson's words and see the obvious disconnects to how we actually run our nation, our communities, our businesses, our homes. Our country will continue to be a hot mess of poverty, racism, sexism, and the cruelty and injustice that arise from those horrific truths, until we can reconcile the irreconcilable. Our country was founded in beautiful ideals, but the people who wrote the words down and crafted the ideals didn't really mean what they said.
All men are created equal. Me, too.
Footnote:
A simple, short explanation of the relationships between Thomas, Martha, and Sally is here: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/jamie-stiehm/2010/12/06/thomas-jefferson-and-his-women . While some sources declare only Jefferson's white family (!) as here: http://faculty.montgomerycollege.edu/gyouth/FP_examples/student_examples/truc_huynh/family.html others more accurately present his entire family, which, should you be wondering, has been confirmed via DNA testing. Monticello now acknowledges Hemings' role in Jefferson's life, and her quarters have been unearthed (next to Jefferson's bedroom...of course) at Monticello: https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/ .
This morning I fell down a Twitter-hole, but for once I don't have any regrets. Somebody posted the Langston Hughes poem, I, Too, and then I wanted to read Whitman and then I found some new poems, and all of them were celebrating America and recoiling from the broken promises and rejoicing in the hope of promises one day kept.
(To fall down the same rabbit hole, check out https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/145066/july-4th-poems and https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_occasion_tid=1812 and don't forget to read this brilliant, heartbreaking speech by Frederick Douglass: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/)
While Angelica Schuyler sang it best thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton:
https://mrbrentweaver.wordpress.com/angelica-schuyler-hamilton/
(key passage at 1:35)... I have always felt, well, confused by my role as a woman in America.
When the Founding Fathers said that "all men are created equal" they did not mean it, and nor did they expect anyone else to believe it. Thinking people knew what they meant. Men was not code for humankind, although we like to pretend that that was their intent. No, men meant men, and it did not mean women. Men meant white-Christian-men-of-property-and-class, land owners, the educated. Those who fell outside of those descriptions, by gender or skin tone or finances, were not considered fully human. If a woman was lucky enough to be born white and wealthy, and have a good marriage with a husband who valued her opinion, she might expect to have some influence within her own household...but even this feels optimistic and slightly foolish to me. Women knew their place, and even when they were allowed to speak up,speaking up meant they needed to tread softly and tiptoe around the male egos in their lives. I know this is true because I read history, but also because though we've had vast improvements, movements like #MeToo have proven, if nothing else, that women are expected to take what is dished out to them or else; certainly that has been my experience. Modern women are expected to celebrate their equality, but are penalized for asking for raises; we are taught to come home from work and make dinner and clean up and care for the children and to express undying gratitude to our husbands if they deign to put a few dishes in the dishwasher or change a diaper or read a bedtime story, nevermind that there are pots that need to be scrubbed and lunches made and school paperwork to complete and, well, you get the idea. How many women have heard a voice call from the sofa to the kitchen, "Oh, did you need something?" in oblivion of the truth of how dinner lands on the table each night?
Of course, it was worse for women who did not have the advantages that the founding fathers assumed when they wrote so beautifully about equality. Sally Hemings was three years old when the document was written; thirteen years later she would be impregnated by thirty-six year old widowed man (he was married to her half sister, by the way; Sally Hemings was born a slave but was 3/4 white) and Declaration author Thomas Jefferson in 1789. I wonder what it felt like to Ms. Hemings to hear Jefferson speak of equality and the pursuit of happiness, when she was a slave and a concubine who had to fight for the freedom of her children and who was forced, because of "propriety" to hide in back rooms?
Our American roots are full of hope, grand ideals, optimism, eloquence, and the promise of joy, but they are also home to mold and rot. The same people who declared our right to a pursuit of happiness so solemnly and hopefully did not see most people as people.
I recognize my own privilege. My race, class, and education protect me from many of the sorrows of the world. When my blue eyed, fair skinned daughter goes out into the world, I know that police will leap to her aid if she requires it; I expect to be admitted to any place I care to go without a second glance. I can jaywalk without fear (suspecting that a "oops, sorry Officer!" and a smile will be enough). And yet, because my sex means that I am less likely to hold high position, to receive the salary I deserve, to be acknowledged at the conference table or the political position, or to walk down the street free of harrassment, I have a hint of what it might mean to have further erosions into my sense of equality. Because I know the bitterness of not being quite equal, I can speculate what someone without my privilege might experience, and I feel rage.
Rage.
Not a slight disappointment, not frustration, not confusion, but white-hot-burns-the-world-to-ash RAGE.
How dare we do this to people? These are somebody's children. I'm a mother, and there is almost nothing I would not sacrifice for my daughter's safety. How do parents bear it when they send their black boys into the world, knowing that they can be shot for holding up a phone, that the police will be called if they mow the neighbor's lawn? How can they bear it? I know that they cannot. I can feel the bile in their throats as they are forced to go about their business, eating and sleeping and working and trying, knowing that this is how the world works.
When I got married, my father told me that he was glad I was marrying a white person. Even then (another lifetime ago), I was shocked, horrified. I often contemplate the comment, which he made in a thoughtless, offhand, unimportant way. I look at my own daughter, and contemplate her far-off, future spouse, and I think of his words, and how it felt to hear his words, and what I might say to my daughter near her wedding day. Repulsed by his sentiment, I see it differently. I see that my daughter might marry a black or brown man (or woman - why not?), and that my grandchildren might have dark skin, Afros, slave heritage. I imagine the love that I feel for my daughter and the love that I will feel for my grandchildren, and I imagine holding these future, beloved grandchildren and staring into their beautiful, dark eyes, and though these children are imaginary, I want to protect them with every fiber of my being. I feel fierce and protective of my daughter, and of her someday children, her someday spouse. I want to look my grandchildren in the eye and tell them that I have helped to shape that the world that they live in, so that they feel safe and loved and welcome.
So, even though it's not personal, it's personal. I have no idea who (or if) my daughter will marry; she is a high school student with hopes and dreams but with no clarity about the future and she's still working out high school romance, let alone life-long partnership; only time will reveal her path, her love, her family. Still, the possibility exists.
America was created in great part by Thomas Jefferson, by Martha Jefferson (lacking formal education, a widow already when she married Jefferson at 24, half sister to slaves), by Sally Hemings and her six children from a man who owned her and never married her, though they lived together. Thomas Jefferson's choices were the ones that shaped the nation, but Martha and Sally's stories are just as important, true, and relevant to the America that we live in today.
Martha loved her husband, the documents show. Her husband, who crafted the nation with no place for women, loved her back, perhaps never even considering the idea that his beloved wife might be his equal, deserving of equality in the workplace, the voting booth, the court, the bedroom, the home.
It is the tension between Jefferson's words and actions that continues to define the tensions in society today. We are a country of great ideals that has failed to live up to those ideals. We are optimists; we like the ideas behind the words, and so we continue to refer to them, to hold up the words as proof of what we're capable of. The words offer comfort, a child's story before bedtime, soothing, hopeful, but because we are not children, we know that the author of those words gave them as fiction, not the non-fiction that we long for. We know that the phrasing, though poetic, intentionally leaves out a minimum of 50% of the population. We know what he said, but we know what we know, and that his words are tinted more with politeness than truth. I do not think that Jefferson likely changed a diaper, and I wonder if he knew a woman's anatomy well enough to be a decent lover, or if his wife was required to put up with his bumbling because that was just expected. Did he see his wife as an equal in intellect and potential, or simply as a person placed on the earth to make his own life more pleasant?
When Thomas wrote "all men are created equal," I wonder if Martha thought, "Me, too." I wonder if Sally thought, "Me, too." I wonder if these women were bitter when they heard the words, or if they shook their heads and thought, "if only you really understood!" I wonder what their children thought? I wonder if Martha's children knew, in that way that children have of knowing, that Sally's quarters were connected to Thomas'. I wonder if the Brady-bunch style children saw their family resemblances as sibling-cousins. I wonder how Thomas treated his second-six children behind closed doors, and if there were ever Christmases around the tree with all twelve of his children. (I think I know the answer to this, as do you, but the history books do not reveal the answer.)
While the #MeToo movement is about men's sexual aggression toward women (and, just for the record...#metoo), I think it's an apt description of the political uprisings we see now, in 2018, from those who believe in Jefferson's words and see the obvious disconnects to how we actually run our nation, our communities, our businesses, our homes. Our country will continue to be a hot mess of poverty, racism, sexism, and the cruelty and injustice that arise from those horrific truths, until we can reconcile the irreconcilable. Our country was founded in beautiful ideals, but the people who wrote the words down and crafted the ideals didn't really mean what they said.
All men are created equal. Me, too.
Footnote:
A simple, short explanation of the relationships between Thomas, Martha, and Sally is here: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/jamie-stiehm/2010/12/06/thomas-jefferson-and-his-women . While some sources declare only Jefferson's white family (!) as here: http://faculty.montgomerycollege.edu/gyouth/FP_examples/student_examples/truc_huynh/family.html others more accurately present his entire family, which, should you be wondering, has been confirmed via DNA testing. Monticello now acknowledges Hemings' role in Jefferson's life, and her quarters have been unearthed (next to Jefferson's bedroom...of course) at Monticello: https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/ .
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Island Time
Hello again!
As is so often the case (and surely I'm not alone in this), sometimes I get lost. I get caught up in the commute, the onslaught of junk mail and paperwork and errands and the need to unload the dishwasher, mow the lawn, and return the phone calls. When this happens, I forget to do the things that inspire me: I forget to read for pleasure, I forget to stand at the ocean's shore, I forget to write. I forget who I am really, trapped by my own busy-ness.
This year was a special one in my life, a turning point, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I returned to the career that means the most to me, that inspires me, that reminds me of who I really am (and not who I think I'm supposed to be, or who someone else wants me to be). I watched my daughter navigate not just the beginning of high school, but a mid-year transition to a second new school. (Not for the faint of heart, that.)
I was so wrapped up in becoming who I want to be that I forgot to be who I am. I was so busy becoming that I forgot to just be.
No regrets.
Some years are like that, and offer challenges that demand full time attention. Early this year I realized that I only had two goals for the entire year, and that the rest would just have to wait: 1) I needed to be the best mom I am capable of being for my daughter, and 2) I needed to figure out how to be a decent teacher again. While I believe in balance, and self care, and political action, and, well, yard work...this wasn't that year. Holding tight to my two goals was all I could manage.
Initially, this gave me anxiety. But what about this small thing, and this big thing, and this incredibly important thing? What about that? I was raised to think that it was my job to Do It All With A Smile, and I was actively acknowledging my limitations, to not just not get everything all done, but to refuse to attempt such a fool's errand.
But here is what I've learned from such an enterprise: it was liberating. My house was a little grittier than I'd like it to be, my body is much softer than I'd like it to be, I didn't write at all (this blog was as much writing as I tried, and the last entry was February 11th...!). A younger version of myself might consider this a failure, a weakness, a series of mistakes, a shame and an embarrassment. My wiser self considers it a grand accomplishment.
This year, I put my soul into my two missions. I helped my daughter to navigate a rocky year, and I saw her rise up, and I saw our relationship navigate some bumps and bruises and become stronger than ever. I taught with more heart than I knew I had, swallowing my pride at my newness on countless occasions, open to the needs of the students and the advice of my peers, but also listening to my internal voice about what gifts I had to offer. I was startled by the results: though I knew I'd enjoy teaching again, I didn't know that I would love it with a tenderness and joy that often took my breath away. I didn't know that the students would recognize that love, and reflect it back to me.
I am exhausted but giddy. I have changed my life's path, again, turning my ship in a new direction, uncharted. (I do not know many who have taken such career risks at my age.) I feel young again: the world is full of hope and possibility, I can grow, and I can't see the future but it feels fresh and new. I am no longer in the fall of my life, but in the spring once again, when things are fresh, new, and filled with possibility.
I am on the first week of my summer vacation, and the startling realization that I've actually pulled this thing off. Not only did I survive my first year, but I thrived. I may have only had two big goals, but I feel like I hit them out of the park, and I'm delighted. Deciding that I could not do it all (for the first time in my life) meant that I was focused and that, possibly, I did better than I hoped for.
Hurrah!
But to everything there is a season, and I have no desire to stay put. If my waist gets any bigger I'll need a whole new wardrobe, and if I don't do some house projects then I'll hate walking in the front door. If I don't write, I feel my soul withering. And if I don't spend lots of time in nature, I can't breathe. And politics? It's a mess, and people are being hurt, and if I don't take my white-hetero-middle-class privilege and do something, then I won't be able to look myself in the eye. It's time.
One of the blessings of my new life is that I get resets built in. As a teacher, I have a definitive cycle each year: a new year means a new crop of students, a newly revised curriculum, a new chance to be my best self. And the end of the year means a chance to regroup, to breathe, to do some self care, and to set some new goals.
In my last jobs, I had two weeks of vacation a year. It wasn't enough time to do much: a couple days of chaperoning field trips, a couple of days at Christmas, a long weekend, and one week of camping, and my year was done. I never quite caught my breath, ever.
But now I'm on island time.
I write this from a cabin in the San Juans, a little slice of paradise. The cabin is owned by a dear friend who is generous with her invitations to share the space, and I've been coming here at least annually for more than twenty years, usually for a weekend at a time. But with my daughter off on an adventure with friends (mountain biking and river rafting, and staying in a cabin in Oregon), I find myself on the first real week of summer truly living on island time.
I'm ready for clean food - the fruits and vegetables of summer call. I'm ready for long walks and hikes, and, when my body feels ready, long runs. I'm ready to dive into the sea, and let the cold, bracing water remind me that I'm alive. I'm ready to read one book after the next. I'm ready to think about life, to reflect, to ponder.
We all need time and space for island time. I'm well aware that it might be a necessity for a balanced and happy life, and that many people never get that space. I think about the clients at the food bank where I used to work, and I think about children separated from their parents and living in converted Wal-Marts filled with kennel like cages, and I know how incredibly fortunate I am. I will not squander my fortune.
The summer is new, fresh, and unknown. I am on an island, writing this from a sofa, sun streaming through the windows, music playing. I've had several cups of coffee, I've got a view of the sea, I found a space to write something, and the world is full of possibility. Today I'll hike around a lake, I'll walk around a beach, I'll read a book, I'll have long chats with one of my dearest friends. In the back of my mind, I'll still be thinking about how I want to shape my life, who I want to be, what I can do to be my best self. But right now, what I want most is to remember how lucky I am, to slow down, to ponder with lasting amazement that...
I did it. I created a new life for myself. I changed my path, and, as Frost reminds us, "that has made all the difference."
And now it is time to slow down. Island time!
As is so often the case (and surely I'm not alone in this), sometimes I get lost. I get caught up in the commute, the onslaught of junk mail and paperwork and errands and the need to unload the dishwasher, mow the lawn, and return the phone calls. When this happens, I forget to do the things that inspire me: I forget to read for pleasure, I forget to stand at the ocean's shore, I forget to write. I forget who I am really, trapped by my own busy-ness.
This year was a special one in my life, a turning point, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I returned to the career that means the most to me, that inspires me, that reminds me of who I really am (and not who I think I'm supposed to be, or who someone else wants me to be). I watched my daughter navigate not just the beginning of high school, but a mid-year transition to a second new school. (Not for the faint of heart, that.)
I was so wrapped up in becoming who I want to be that I forgot to be who I am. I was so busy becoming that I forgot to just be.
No regrets.
Some years are like that, and offer challenges that demand full time attention. Early this year I realized that I only had two goals for the entire year, and that the rest would just have to wait: 1) I needed to be the best mom I am capable of being for my daughter, and 2) I needed to figure out how to be a decent teacher again. While I believe in balance, and self care, and political action, and, well, yard work...this wasn't that year. Holding tight to my two goals was all I could manage.
Initially, this gave me anxiety. But what about this small thing, and this big thing, and this incredibly important thing? What about that? I was raised to think that it was my job to Do It All With A Smile, and I was actively acknowledging my limitations, to not just not get everything all done, but to refuse to attempt such a fool's errand.
But here is what I've learned from such an enterprise: it was liberating. My house was a little grittier than I'd like it to be, my body is much softer than I'd like it to be, I didn't write at all (this blog was as much writing as I tried, and the last entry was February 11th...!). A younger version of myself might consider this a failure, a weakness, a series of mistakes, a shame and an embarrassment. My wiser self considers it a grand accomplishment.
This year, I put my soul into my two missions. I helped my daughter to navigate a rocky year, and I saw her rise up, and I saw our relationship navigate some bumps and bruises and become stronger than ever. I taught with more heart than I knew I had, swallowing my pride at my newness on countless occasions, open to the needs of the students and the advice of my peers, but also listening to my internal voice about what gifts I had to offer. I was startled by the results: though I knew I'd enjoy teaching again, I didn't know that I would love it with a tenderness and joy that often took my breath away. I didn't know that the students would recognize that love, and reflect it back to me.
I am exhausted but giddy. I have changed my life's path, again, turning my ship in a new direction, uncharted. (I do not know many who have taken such career risks at my age.) I feel young again: the world is full of hope and possibility, I can grow, and I can't see the future but it feels fresh and new. I am no longer in the fall of my life, but in the spring once again, when things are fresh, new, and filled with possibility.
I am on the first week of my summer vacation, and the startling realization that I've actually pulled this thing off. Not only did I survive my first year, but I thrived. I may have only had two big goals, but I feel like I hit them out of the park, and I'm delighted. Deciding that I could not do it all (for the first time in my life) meant that I was focused and that, possibly, I did better than I hoped for.
Hurrah!
But to everything there is a season, and I have no desire to stay put. If my waist gets any bigger I'll need a whole new wardrobe, and if I don't do some house projects then I'll hate walking in the front door. If I don't write, I feel my soul withering. And if I don't spend lots of time in nature, I can't breathe. And politics? It's a mess, and people are being hurt, and if I don't take my white-hetero-middle-class privilege and do something, then I won't be able to look myself in the eye. It's time.
One of the blessings of my new life is that I get resets built in. As a teacher, I have a definitive cycle each year: a new year means a new crop of students, a newly revised curriculum, a new chance to be my best self. And the end of the year means a chance to regroup, to breathe, to do some self care, and to set some new goals.
In my last jobs, I had two weeks of vacation a year. It wasn't enough time to do much: a couple days of chaperoning field trips, a couple of days at Christmas, a long weekend, and one week of camping, and my year was done. I never quite caught my breath, ever.
But now I'm on island time.
I write this from a cabin in the San Juans, a little slice of paradise. The cabin is owned by a dear friend who is generous with her invitations to share the space, and I've been coming here at least annually for more than twenty years, usually for a weekend at a time. But with my daughter off on an adventure with friends (mountain biking and river rafting, and staying in a cabin in Oregon), I find myself on the first real week of summer truly living on island time.
I'm ready for clean food - the fruits and vegetables of summer call. I'm ready for long walks and hikes, and, when my body feels ready, long runs. I'm ready to dive into the sea, and let the cold, bracing water remind me that I'm alive. I'm ready to read one book after the next. I'm ready to think about life, to reflect, to ponder.
We all need time and space for island time. I'm well aware that it might be a necessity for a balanced and happy life, and that many people never get that space. I think about the clients at the food bank where I used to work, and I think about children separated from their parents and living in converted Wal-Marts filled with kennel like cages, and I know how incredibly fortunate I am. I will not squander my fortune.
The summer is new, fresh, and unknown. I am on an island, writing this from a sofa, sun streaming through the windows, music playing. I've had several cups of coffee, I've got a view of the sea, I found a space to write something, and the world is full of possibility. Today I'll hike around a lake, I'll walk around a beach, I'll read a book, I'll have long chats with one of my dearest friends. In the back of my mind, I'll still be thinking about how I want to shape my life, who I want to be, what I can do to be my best self. But right now, what I want most is to remember how lucky I am, to slow down, to ponder with lasting amazement that...
I did it. I created a new life for myself. I changed my path, and, as Frost reminds us, "that has made all the difference."
And now it is time to slow down. Island time!
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Teacher Pay
Yesterday I had a conversation with a person about public education and teacher pay; this person was grumbling that if teachers get raises, her taxes will go up, but this person makes many times my salary. Another person in the conversation chimed in that maybe teachers didn't need advanced degrees and that then they wouldn't want to be paid so much and that would solve the problem. In the same conversation, these folks said, "I could never do that!" and I thought, "You're right. You couldn't."
I pride myself on the fact that I did not go ballistic and tear those two apart verbally (or otherwise!), but I will say here what I said there: I have been in sales at Microsoft, I've been a non-profit Executive Director, and FAR AND AWAY teaching is the most challenging job I have ever done.
If you don't believe me, step in front of a room of 32 kids with a plan to teach them something, and make sure that they ALL understand, stay engaged, and leave the classroom with a better skill set than when they went in. Do this five times a day with different groups of kids, some of whom are gifted, some of whom are special ed, some of whom are gifted AND special ed, and all of whom are battling their own issues (social woes, problems with parents, anxiety, thinking about the big meet coming up, the test they have in the next period, ADD, boredom, confusion, hormones) and know that you need to hold their attention and their respect in order to keep them learning throughout the rest of the year. Then, grade the 150 papers that they turn in to you. Attend a department meeting to discuss curricular approaches, a staff meeting to discuss how to respond to suicidal students or active shooters or child abuse (all of which we've covered so far this year). Manage the kid who uses the n-word in class and then reach out to students who have been harmed by that word, the kid who is thinking about dropping out, and the kid who has a panic attack over a poor grade (literally), and do so in the break between classes and as another group of 34 students is walking in the door and asking you questions. Do not be short with your students, but kindly and firmly remind them that you will answer their questions one at a time, when they are in their seats. Anticipate their questions, and answer them before they ask. Be gracious, be thoughtful, be firm. Let them know that you care about them, that you won't let them get away with anything, and do so while focusing on content area.
Do all of this with a smile on your face and the patience of a saint, because these are just kids and they deserve your best self; explain that you'll answer their questions one at a time, point them to the instructions already posted on the board AND in OneNote. Console the kid whose father is in the hospital, the kid whose friend just died in an accident, and the kid suffering from bipolar; they are people deserving caring, and they will learn better in your class if they feel understood and acknowledged. Remember to look for signs in the three kids whom you know to be suicidal. Respond to parent emails. Spend a couple of hours each day seeking out ways to make the curriculum more engaging: read everything you can get your hands on about your subject matter, education, teaching practices. Comb the blogs of other teachers looking for engaging lessons, and then modify them to meet the needs of your students. Get ridiculously excited when a student walks in your room and says, "I made cookies - would you like one?"
Chaperone TOLO, Winter Ball, Homecoming, and Prom on Saturday nights because you could use the cash, and be grateful that in your wealthy district, you get paid to be there; try not to think about how close to minimum wage activity pay is and how long you were in grad school. Sit next to students in the gym for assemblies, shushing them. Create a bathroom policy for your classroom.
And while you do all that, focus on academic rigor. Make sure that your freshmen are ready for AP; make sure that your AP students have the skills to score well on AP and get into top colleges and succeed at those colleges. Write letters of recommendation for your students to go to college; do this on a Saturday. Agree to go over college essays with students one on one after school, because who else would they ask for help from except their English teacher for that task? Model to them a love of literature: teach them how to do a close and nuanced reading, and to write thesis statements, and to craft arguments with evidence and insightful analysis. Do not "murder to dissect" and make sure that the students have time within the rigor to just play with the ideas contained in literature, to feel passionately about the characters, to learn about human nature. Get their state test scores as high as you can. Give homework, but not too much. Support their in class work, but not too much. Provide them with information, but don't talk at them. Put them in seating arrangements where they are challenged, socially accepted but focused, non-disruptive, and where they do their best work. Pay attention to their romances, break ups, and petty feuds when you create those seating charts, in addition to which students have hearing loss, attention issues, need extra challenges to raise the course to their level, or do not understand any of your instructions.
Do all that, and succeed at it, and tell me how I can do it better, and in less time, and I'll listen joyfully. But until then? Pay your taxes. Support teachers. Demand reasonable pay for teachers, and support teachers when they say, "I can't afford to live near the school I teach in, and I spend my own money to buy tissues and supplies." Tell your kids to say "thank you" when a teacher helps them. Or, at worst, just BE QUIET. Please step aside and don't get in my way as I bend myself into a pretzel shape to meet the needs of our children. I do all of this with love, which is why I am glad to do the work, but it's hard work and I'm exhausted, and I do not have time for that kind of nonsense. I'm a professional, working with other talented professionals, and all of us are busting our rear ends to meet the needs of society and children.
I'm writing this from my desk at school, on a Sunday, and now I need to get back to grading.
Rant over.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Middle Aged
I find it amusing, confusing, and bemusing that I am middle aged.
At 48, I am clearly in the middle part of my life (if I am lucky). I imagine celebrating my 100th birthday some day, and not everyone gets that lucky: life expectancy for women is 81 years, so if I'm average, I might only have 32 years left. I'm clearly in the middle of my life, no matter how I look at it.
What's weird about it is that I find it somewhat shocking. I suppose that time has passed for me as it has passed for everyone else, one minute, one hour, one day, one year at a time, and that is how I find myself here, but there is a part of it that makes me want to say, "Hold on, surely there has been a mistake?!"
I don't know what middle age is supposed to feel like, so I don't know if I'm getting it right. I have no idea what "right" middle age looks like.
I grew up with jokes that middle aged men had "crises" where they purchased sports cars, preferably red, but this confused me then and it confused me now. Why is that a crisis? If, at middle age, men could finally afford a sports car, and wanted to go have some fun, why is that silly or stupid or sad? But I'm not going to talk about middle aged men here because, well, I don't pretend to understand middle aged men in the slightest, but I have a few insights about being a middle aged woman. (Perhaps my male readers would like to chime in with their perspectives?)
Middle aged women, though, were invisible to me. Not young enough to be considered beautiful, sexy, or interesting, they were not old enough to be sweet little old ladies.
There are so many problems with that last sentence that I don't even know where to begin.
I think, if I have the messages "right," that the societal message for me as a middle aged woman is that I ought to invest in hair dye and anti-aging creme (they do know that the opposite of aging is death, right? do they know that?!). As I face my empty nest (my daughter is 15 and will head to college in a few short years) I am to struggle and wonder who I am now that mothering does not take up 99% of my waking thoughts. I am to wonder at millennials, and technology, and how I am not heard in meetings, and I am to start taking a back seat in my career. I am to slow down, to fade, to be quiet. I am invisible in film, on television, and in print media. I am to mourn that my hair isn't as thick and silky as it once was, and that my body is no longer suitable for bikinis.
And - and this is very important - I am supposed to believe that my life's path is set, that my chance to remake myself, my life, my passions, my impact, is done. I am to believe that it is what it is, I am either wildly successful or my life has been wasted, but it is what it is.
To all of that, I say PHOOEY.
Let's go over a few details about my life to bring you up to speed.
I'm 48, and I'm a divorced (about six years) single mom of a fifteen year old daughter. I'm a cancer survivor (breast cancer twelve years ago) and my body bears the scars and markings of that treatment, as well as the misfortune of living without estrogen since my diagnosis (all part of the treatment). Before divorce, I was a stay at home mom who was out of the workforce for close to a decade. My bank balance floats precariously close to disaster with great regularity; it seems a miracle that I have been able to stay on the right side of disaster as long as I have. Since divorce, I have restarted my career, starting from scratch to enter the non-profit world and working my way to an Executive Director position in that world, before returning to my true love of teaching and - at the age of 47 - taking on a teaching job for the first time in fourteen years.
You wouldn't be crazy if you looked at my life and said, "oh, honey, that sounds tough!" or "Bless your heart!" (if you're from the South). It's not all peaches and sunshine, and I couldn't blame you for thinking, "What a disaster!"
But you'd be wrong.
I am happier, right here and right now, than I have ever been in my entire life. I have a gray streak, funny little crinkles at the corners of my eyes, and my belly is soft....but I am strong, and healthy, and I don't feel gray, I feel...alive. Fiery. Vibrant. Nobody told me that I could feel like that, and I'm actually told that I DON'T feel like that. Take this article from The Atlantic about middle age: the writer tells me, "Perhaps it makes sense that middle-aged people increasingly cling to youth when the alternative is the slow drift into irrelevance."
Well.
No.
I think that the writer (who, to his credit, is reflecting what most people tell me or insinuate about middle age), is comically off his rocker if he's talking about my life. He's NOT talking about my life.
In middle age, I'm finally the me I've been longing to be all along. Oh, make no mistake, I wasn't aiming at a soft belly or a gray streak, but those things are so tiny compared to the rest. At 48, I'm not struggling to find my way under my parents' well intentioned but misguided patriarchal world view ("Why on earth would you want a masters degree if you're just going to have babies anyway?"), nor the desire to be a career woman but to navigate office politics that indicated that mens' voices were allowed but women shouldn't be strident or loud, and I'm through the difficult mess of trying to raise a young child whose needs, by definition, needed to be placed above my own. I created a career after my divorce that was based upon my daughter's need to access me, to flexibility, as well as the need to put food on the table, but now that she's older, I get to pick my own hours, and to cheerfully call her and say "Can you season the chicken and pop it in the oven, because I'm going to be late tonight?" without worrying about childcare or leaving her alone, because she's quite capable of putting chicken in the oven and old enough to enjoy having the house to herself for a couple extra hours as well. While I haven't found a grand romance since my divorce, I've had flirtations and dates galore, and I don't feel undesirable.
At 48, I feel like I'm finally, at long last, just getting started.
Irrelevant? I'm supposed to drift into irrelevance?
Not even close.
At 48, I've returned to work that sets my soul on fire, and, because my soul is on fire with caring about it, I excel at it. I am at ease with my students in a way that I wasn't when I taught in my early 30s, and when they test me with their teenage antics, I can raise an eyebrow at them and say, "You're kidding, right?" in a way that lets them know that they can't get away with it, but that I love them anyway.
At 48, I no longer go out on dates with men who don't interest me. I know who I am, I know what I like, and I know what I'm worth, and I can't be bothered with dating for the sake of dating any more; I have nothing to prove in that category. I hope for Le Grande Passion, but I'm not worried about it. It'll happen when it happens.
At 48, I've gotten political. I register people to vote. I hold meetings to discuss the issues in my home. I participate in local activities such as Citizen University or lectures. I'm not woke, but I'm waking, and I'm on fire with the desire to create equality within society, and to fight inequality when I see it. I'm not afraid to speak up (I'm not a little girl, and I've got experience, and education, so why wouldn't I speak up?) but I'm not as brash as needing to talk all the time, either, and I find the listening fascinating.
At 48, I'm reveling in these last years of heavy duty parenting. My 15 year old daughter startles me with the strength of her voice - I was not so sophisticated at her age, did not know my own mind so well, nor how to articulate my view of things - and when she reveals her strengths to me I'm overwhelmed by love and the desire to see her fly past me in life. I hope and pray that the things that held me back will not hold her back, and that she will surpass me, and that instead of this being a burden to me, it is a joy. I'm still ahead of her on the road, and I know that her life (as well as my own) will be easier if I can cut the path for her, so I'm inspired to be a model for her about what it means to really live, and in this way she keeps me young. One day she will teach me, and I can't wait to learn from her and to grow because of that, but for the next minute or two, I'm still guiding her, and having fun finding new ways to do that.
I am not as fit as I once was, but I see this, too, as temporary. Just a few years ago I was in the best shape of my life, but as I focused more on politics I focused less on exercise. At 48, I do not see this as proof of my mistakes, but rather, as an acknowledgment that one can't do it all all at the same time. This year is about re-entering education. I can run a marathon another year. I might.
At 48, my house is filled with real, true, deep friendships. I can call the people in my life that I call friends and they will come drink wine with me, or help me lift something heavy, or let me cry, or share my celebration. They hold my hand as I go for cancer testing, and then they're just as happy as I am when the results are good. These friendships are without jealousy, competition, or sly side-talk. I am included in their lives, as they are in mine, and we can go a month without talking or we can talk every day but they are constants none-the-less.
At 48, I shared my #metoo story and was released from it.
I march in the streets to proclaim my view of what the world could be. I know what matters to me, and I speak up for it. At 48, it seems, others want to listen to me. They say that I have a way of viewing the world that helps them, and they want to join me in my quest to improve things.
At 48, when I'm asked to join the committee/the board/the event, I know that I can be flattered but still say no. I know that when I say yes, I will commit with joy.
At 48, I am just getting started. I am finally, at last, free of some notions that didn't serve me. I am filled with wonder at it, that I can be so wholly myself, without a young woman's confusing lack of experience to guide her, but not yet elderly or infirm. Instead, I'm informed, excited, interested, and capable. Whether it is in the kitchen, where I whip up delicious new ideas without fear and then share them with friends and family, or in the workplace when I try new ideas and hope for the best (and course correct when they don't work), or in community activism where I take on leadership, or in parenting (where I find that I absolutely love mothering a fifteen year old because she's funny and smart and, though occasionally exasperating, she's fascinating and wonderful and I don't want to change her).
And best of all? I don't need to tell you all of this and then apologize for appearing too brash. I am not apologetic about my strengths, though I was taught to do so.
It's not perfect. Cancer + divorce = scary finances (or, as my friend B. once said, "scary-fine - I'm okay, but it's still scary, so I call it scary-fine"). I'd like to believe that there is a man out there who would make me a great partner, but I haven't met him yet, and so that makes me a little sad.
I don't have models for what middle age looks like, so I'm making it up as I go. Luckily for me, I have friends doing this work alongside me. I look at them, at us, and think that you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back in time, even if that meant that my belly would be toned and that the world would see me instead of looking slightly past me. My friends and I - as well as new voices that pop up in newspapers and, on lucky rare occasion, film - are finding our way, in a new way, in uncharted territory.
Middle age is awesome. It's better than it has ever been in my life, and nobody told me this was coming. I was told to be afraid, to fear my irrelevance, to shrivel, to shrink.
Middle age is for growing, and I'm growing. The sky is the limit, and I'm just getting started, and I am making my own rules.
I have a great deal more to say on this topic, but I'd like to hear from you. What is your experience of middle age? How do you feel about being middle aged? What middle aged stereotypes do you encounter? What startles you about middle age? And - most of all - what are your suggestions for navigating middle age with some zest?
I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for reading!
At 48, I am clearly in the middle part of my life (if I am lucky). I imagine celebrating my 100th birthday some day, and not everyone gets that lucky: life expectancy for women is 81 years, so if I'm average, I might only have 32 years left. I'm clearly in the middle of my life, no matter how I look at it.
What's weird about it is that I find it somewhat shocking. I suppose that time has passed for me as it has passed for everyone else, one minute, one hour, one day, one year at a time, and that is how I find myself here, but there is a part of it that makes me want to say, "Hold on, surely there has been a mistake?!"
I don't know what middle age is supposed to feel like, so I don't know if I'm getting it right. I have no idea what "right" middle age looks like.
I grew up with jokes that middle aged men had "crises" where they purchased sports cars, preferably red, but this confused me then and it confused me now. Why is that a crisis? If, at middle age, men could finally afford a sports car, and wanted to go have some fun, why is that silly or stupid or sad? But I'm not going to talk about middle aged men here because, well, I don't pretend to understand middle aged men in the slightest, but I have a few insights about being a middle aged woman. (Perhaps my male readers would like to chime in with their perspectives?)
Middle aged women, though, were invisible to me. Not young enough to be considered beautiful, sexy, or interesting, they were not old enough to be sweet little old ladies.
There are so many problems with that last sentence that I don't even know where to begin.
I think, if I have the messages "right," that the societal message for me as a middle aged woman is that I ought to invest in hair dye and anti-aging creme (they do know that the opposite of aging is death, right? do they know that?!). As I face my empty nest (my daughter is 15 and will head to college in a few short years) I am to struggle and wonder who I am now that mothering does not take up 99% of my waking thoughts. I am to wonder at millennials, and technology, and how I am not heard in meetings, and I am to start taking a back seat in my career. I am to slow down, to fade, to be quiet. I am invisible in film, on television, and in print media. I am to mourn that my hair isn't as thick and silky as it once was, and that my body is no longer suitable for bikinis.
And - and this is very important - I am supposed to believe that my life's path is set, that my chance to remake myself, my life, my passions, my impact, is done. I am to believe that it is what it is, I am either wildly successful or my life has been wasted, but it is what it is.
To all of that, I say PHOOEY.
Let's go over a few details about my life to bring you up to speed.
I'm 48, and I'm a divorced (about six years) single mom of a fifteen year old daughter. I'm a cancer survivor (breast cancer twelve years ago) and my body bears the scars and markings of that treatment, as well as the misfortune of living without estrogen since my diagnosis (all part of the treatment). Before divorce, I was a stay at home mom who was out of the workforce for close to a decade. My bank balance floats precariously close to disaster with great regularity; it seems a miracle that I have been able to stay on the right side of disaster as long as I have. Since divorce, I have restarted my career, starting from scratch to enter the non-profit world and working my way to an Executive Director position in that world, before returning to my true love of teaching and - at the age of 47 - taking on a teaching job for the first time in fourteen years.
You wouldn't be crazy if you looked at my life and said, "oh, honey, that sounds tough!" or "Bless your heart!" (if you're from the South). It's not all peaches and sunshine, and I couldn't blame you for thinking, "What a disaster!"
But you'd be wrong.
I am happier, right here and right now, than I have ever been in my entire life. I have a gray streak, funny little crinkles at the corners of my eyes, and my belly is soft....but I am strong, and healthy, and I don't feel gray, I feel...alive. Fiery. Vibrant. Nobody told me that I could feel like that, and I'm actually told that I DON'T feel like that. Take this article from The Atlantic about middle age: the writer tells me, "Perhaps it makes sense that middle-aged people increasingly cling to youth when the alternative is the slow drift into irrelevance."
Well.
No.
I think that the writer (who, to his credit, is reflecting what most people tell me or insinuate about middle age), is comically off his rocker if he's talking about my life. He's NOT talking about my life.
In middle age, I'm finally the me I've been longing to be all along. Oh, make no mistake, I wasn't aiming at a soft belly or a gray streak, but those things are so tiny compared to the rest. At 48, I'm not struggling to find my way under my parents' well intentioned but misguided patriarchal world view ("Why on earth would you want a masters degree if you're just going to have babies anyway?"), nor the desire to be a career woman but to navigate office politics that indicated that mens' voices were allowed but women shouldn't be strident or loud, and I'm through the difficult mess of trying to raise a young child whose needs, by definition, needed to be placed above my own. I created a career after my divorce that was based upon my daughter's need to access me, to flexibility, as well as the need to put food on the table, but now that she's older, I get to pick my own hours, and to cheerfully call her and say "Can you season the chicken and pop it in the oven, because I'm going to be late tonight?" without worrying about childcare or leaving her alone, because she's quite capable of putting chicken in the oven and old enough to enjoy having the house to herself for a couple extra hours as well. While I haven't found a grand romance since my divorce, I've had flirtations and dates galore, and I don't feel undesirable.
At 48, I feel like I'm finally, at long last, just getting started.
Irrelevant? I'm supposed to drift into irrelevance?
Not even close.
At 48, I've returned to work that sets my soul on fire, and, because my soul is on fire with caring about it, I excel at it. I am at ease with my students in a way that I wasn't when I taught in my early 30s, and when they test me with their teenage antics, I can raise an eyebrow at them and say, "You're kidding, right?" in a way that lets them know that they can't get away with it, but that I love them anyway.
At 48, I no longer go out on dates with men who don't interest me. I know who I am, I know what I like, and I know what I'm worth, and I can't be bothered with dating for the sake of dating any more; I have nothing to prove in that category. I hope for Le Grande Passion, but I'm not worried about it. It'll happen when it happens.
At 48, I've gotten political. I register people to vote. I hold meetings to discuss the issues in my home. I participate in local activities such as Citizen University or lectures. I'm not woke, but I'm waking, and I'm on fire with the desire to create equality within society, and to fight inequality when I see it. I'm not afraid to speak up (I'm not a little girl, and I've got experience, and education, so why wouldn't I speak up?) but I'm not as brash as needing to talk all the time, either, and I find the listening fascinating.
At 48, I'm reveling in these last years of heavy duty parenting. My 15 year old daughter startles me with the strength of her voice - I was not so sophisticated at her age, did not know my own mind so well, nor how to articulate my view of things - and when she reveals her strengths to me I'm overwhelmed by love and the desire to see her fly past me in life. I hope and pray that the things that held me back will not hold her back, and that she will surpass me, and that instead of this being a burden to me, it is a joy. I'm still ahead of her on the road, and I know that her life (as well as my own) will be easier if I can cut the path for her, so I'm inspired to be a model for her about what it means to really live, and in this way she keeps me young. One day she will teach me, and I can't wait to learn from her and to grow because of that, but for the next minute or two, I'm still guiding her, and having fun finding new ways to do that.
I am not as fit as I once was, but I see this, too, as temporary. Just a few years ago I was in the best shape of my life, but as I focused more on politics I focused less on exercise. At 48, I do not see this as proof of my mistakes, but rather, as an acknowledgment that one can't do it all all at the same time. This year is about re-entering education. I can run a marathon another year. I might.
At 48, my house is filled with real, true, deep friendships. I can call the people in my life that I call friends and they will come drink wine with me, or help me lift something heavy, or let me cry, or share my celebration. They hold my hand as I go for cancer testing, and then they're just as happy as I am when the results are good. These friendships are without jealousy, competition, or sly side-talk. I am included in their lives, as they are in mine, and we can go a month without talking or we can talk every day but they are constants none-the-less.
At 48, I shared my #metoo story and was released from it.
I march in the streets to proclaim my view of what the world could be. I know what matters to me, and I speak up for it. At 48, it seems, others want to listen to me. They say that I have a way of viewing the world that helps them, and they want to join me in my quest to improve things.
At 48, when I'm asked to join the committee/the board/the event, I know that I can be flattered but still say no. I know that when I say yes, I will commit with joy.
At 48, I am just getting started. I am finally, at last, free of some notions that didn't serve me. I am filled with wonder at it, that I can be so wholly myself, without a young woman's confusing lack of experience to guide her, but not yet elderly or infirm. Instead, I'm informed, excited, interested, and capable. Whether it is in the kitchen, where I whip up delicious new ideas without fear and then share them with friends and family, or in the workplace when I try new ideas and hope for the best (and course correct when they don't work), or in community activism where I take on leadership, or in parenting (where I find that I absolutely love mothering a fifteen year old because she's funny and smart and, though occasionally exasperating, she's fascinating and wonderful and I don't want to change her).
And best of all? I don't need to tell you all of this and then apologize for appearing too brash. I am not apologetic about my strengths, though I was taught to do so.
It's not perfect. Cancer + divorce = scary finances (or, as my friend B. once said, "scary-fine - I'm okay, but it's still scary, so I call it scary-fine"). I'd like to believe that there is a man out there who would make me a great partner, but I haven't met him yet, and so that makes me a little sad.
I don't have models for what middle age looks like, so I'm making it up as I go. Luckily for me, I have friends doing this work alongside me. I look at them, at us, and think that you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back in time, even if that meant that my belly would be toned and that the world would see me instead of looking slightly past me. My friends and I - as well as new voices that pop up in newspapers and, on lucky rare occasion, film - are finding our way, in a new way, in uncharted territory.
Middle age is awesome. It's better than it has ever been in my life, and nobody told me this was coming. I was told to be afraid, to fear my irrelevance, to shrivel, to shrink.
Middle age is for growing, and I'm growing. The sky is the limit, and I'm just getting started, and I am making my own rules.
I have a great deal more to say on this topic, but I'd like to hear from you. What is your experience of middle age? How do you feel about being middle aged? What middle aged stereotypes do you encounter? What startles you about middle age? And - most of all - what are your suggestions for navigating middle age with some zest?
I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for reading!
Waves
I am interested in people who make waves.
I love standing on the edge of the pebbled local beach near my house and, on a calm day, hearing the gentle shaking of the pebbles as the tide gently moves in or out, a thin line of foam marking the border between beach and sea, the occasional shell washing in along with lines of kelp or the salad of bright green seaweed. For me, those peaceful moments at the water's edge are like the murmur of friends, quietly doing the everyday work of their lives, participating in the rhythms that drive us all: tucking a child into bed, picking up the mail, pulling weeds, running errands, getting dinner on the table, going to work, eating lunch at a desk to be more efficient, laughing with colleagues, puzzling through small problems, rolling up our sleeves to do the dishes.
When I hear the pebbles chattering under the small waves, I know that all is right with the world in that moment, that the waves and the pebbles are doing what they ought to. I can be fooled into believing that the work isn't important, that the moment is insignificant, but that would leave out some bigger truth. The truth is that it would be impossible to stop those little ripples, to contain the sea, to quiet the pebbles. Whether I am healthy or ill, whether I am busy or quiet, whether I am paying attention or not, the waves keep coming, the pebbles keep rolling just under the water, and the moon keeps pulling the sea in, and out, in, and out, over and over again.
There is another beach nearby with a small sea wall, and when the wind and the tide are just right, the waves do not ripple, they crash and roar and create watery fireworks that explode above. I have wandered countless times on the beach below, on calmer days, picnicking and searching for seashells, but on a day when the moon's pull is particularly strong and the weather is forceful, the beach disappears and the waves are forceful and thunderous, magnificent and powerful.
Lately it seems that there are more big waves than usual, or perhaps I am just noticing them more, but I am alternately awed by their spectacular display and dismayed at how small and insignificant I am next to them. No murmuring or whispering pebbles, these are waves that shout, waves that demand, waves that push. Viewed from a safe distance, they are awe inspiring, but up close, they are terrifying and dangerous and can easily knock a woman from her feet, or wash away a road. I hear the waves shouting, "Me too," and "Never again" and "It's my turn" and "You will listen to me NOW!"
I am the waves. Maybe you are, too. I am quiet and gentle and I can ease a child's soul with a gentle touch and a bedtime story and I can nourish my friends with the food I place on my table and I can please those around me by my agreeable murmurings and accommodations. I am those ripples, and I have spent a lifetime practicing the work of moving in and out with the tides. But it seems that the winds are shifting, too, and I'm finding the delight of letting my hair whip in the wind and the salty spray hit my face as I let the unfettered waves roar and rise and scatter into the air, forcefully, with strength, with pride, with unabashed power. I'm those waves, too.
I am fifty old. I have spent a lifetime trying to be enough, but not too much; to please those around me with my murmurs and constancy, making noise but not making a racket, while somehow trying to demonstrate (all at the same time) that I had a voice worth hearing, too. I have tried not to draw too much attention to the fact that sometimes my work washes up not only seashells, but also beer cans and candy wrappers and broken bits, and I have focused on the good. I am proud of this work: it is important work. And yet? I'm a bit tired of holding back, of forgetting that I was born not only to smooth the pebbles to a luster, but also to smash against the sea wall, to create a glorious show of force and power by tossing spray effortlessly into the air, but creating my own beautiful thunder.
I like people who make waves, especially those who know when it is time to ripple, and when it is time to roar.
This blog is a bit of a ripple and a bit of a roar, exploring the questions of the world around me as I see them, and navigating the weather and the pebbles and the sea wall and the beach. 2018 is an interesting time for women, as we walk a precarious line along the shore, surprising the world that our whispers have turned to commands, that our soothing touch is also capable of surprising strength, and that we get to use that strength as we see fit, and not just as others command it.
I write because, well, because I have to. I have something I want to say, and I want to share it with you. I want to talk about what it means to be a feminist, about where to look for joy, about the wonder of speaking up, about being middle aged, about finding power and about speaking to power, about motherhood, about daughters, about books, about optimism, about health, about girlfriends, about love. I want to be the water, because water is life, and to soothe and refresh, but also to shape and change and insist. I want to make waves. Will you join me?
I love standing on the edge of the pebbled local beach near my house and, on a calm day, hearing the gentle shaking of the pebbles as the tide gently moves in or out, a thin line of foam marking the border between beach and sea, the occasional shell washing in along with lines of kelp or the salad of bright green seaweed. For me, those peaceful moments at the water's edge are like the murmur of friends, quietly doing the everyday work of their lives, participating in the rhythms that drive us all: tucking a child into bed, picking up the mail, pulling weeds, running errands, getting dinner on the table, going to work, eating lunch at a desk to be more efficient, laughing with colleagues, puzzling through small problems, rolling up our sleeves to do the dishes.
When I hear the pebbles chattering under the small waves, I know that all is right with the world in that moment, that the waves and the pebbles are doing what they ought to. I can be fooled into believing that the work isn't important, that the moment is insignificant, but that would leave out some bigger truth. The truth is that it would be impossible to stop those little ripples, to contain the sea, to quiet the pebbles. Whether I am healthy or ill, whether I am busy or quiet, whether I am paying attention or not, the waves keep coming, the pebbles keep rolling just under the water, and the moon keeps pulling the sea in, and out, in, and out, over and over again.
There is another beach nearby with a small sea wall, and when the wind and the tide are just right, the waves do not ripple, they crash and roar and create watery fireworks that explode above. I have wandered countless times on the beach below, on calmer days, picnicking and searching for seashells, but on a day when the moon's pull is particularly strong and the weather is forceful, the beach disappears and the waves are forceful and thunderous, magnificent and powerful.
Lately it seems that there are more big waves than usual, or perhaps I am just noticing them more, but I am alternately awed by their spectacular display and dismayed at how small and insignificant I am next to them. No murmuring or whispering pebbles, these are waves that shout, waves that demand, waves that push. Viewed from a safe distance, they are awe inspiring, but up close, they are terrifying and dangerous and can easily knock a woman from her feet, or wash away a road. I hear the waves shouting, "Me too," and "Never again" and "It's my turn" and "You will listen to me NOW!"
I am the waves. Maybe you are, too. I am quiet and gentle and I can ease a child's soul with a gentle touch and a bedtime story and I can nourish my friends with the food I place on my table and I can please those around me by my agreeable murmurings and accommodations. I am those ripples, and I have spent a lifetime practicing the work of moving in and out with the tides. But it seems that the winds are shifting, too, and I'm finding the delight of letting my hair whip in the wind and the salty spray hit my face as I let the unfettered waves roar and rise and scatter into the air, forcefully, with strength, with pride, with unabashed power. I'm those waves, too.
I am fifty old. I have spent a lifetime trying to be enough, but not too much; to please those around me with my murmurs and constancy, making noise but not making a racket, while somehow trying to demonstrate (all at the same time) that I had a voice worth hearing, too. I have tried not to draw too much attention to the fact that sometimes my work washes up not only seashells, but also beer cans and candy wrappers and broken bits, and I have focused on the good. I am proud of this work: it is important work. And yet? I'm a bit tired of holding back, of forgetting that I was born not only to smooth the pebbles to a luster, but also to smash against the sea wall, to create a glorious show of force and power by tossing spray effortlessly into the air, but creating my own beautiful thunder.
I like people who make waves, especially those who know when it is time to ripple, and when it is time to roar.
This blog is a bit of a ripple and a bit of a roar, exploring the questions of the world around me as I see them, and navigating the weather and the pebbles and the sea wall and the beach. 2018 is an interesting time for women, as we walk a precarious line along the shore, surprising the world that our whispers have turned to commands, that our soothing touch is also capable of surprising strength, and that we get to use that strength as we see fit, and not just as others command it.
I write because, well, because I have to. I have something I want to say, and I want to share it with you. I want to talk about what it means to be a feminist, about where to look for joy, about the wonder of speaking up, about being middle aged, about finding power and about speaking to power, about motherhood, about daughters, about books, about optimism, about health, about girlfriends, about love. I want to be the water, because water is life, and to soothe and refresh, but also to shape and change and insist. I want to make waves. Will you join me?
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Today is a proud day for me. Yesterday, words that I submitted to the New York Times were published in the Sunday Times (online). You can ... -
Yesterday I had a conversation with a person about public education and teacher pay; this person was grumbling that if teachers get raises,...
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I find it amusing, confusing, and bemusing that I am middle aged. At 48, I am clearly in the middle part of my life (if I am lucky). I ima...