10 things Tuesday
Posted on | March 9, 2010 | No Comments
I have been “in the dumps” lately. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve been moody and easily ruffled. I’ve been a porcupine. Recently I was telling M how nothing was going wrong, exactly. I’ve been accomplishing things, looking forward to Spring Break, and had friends over which was a lot of fun. The weather has warmed up though it’s rainy so it seems to make me feel colder than it should. I said to M, “I don’t know what’s going on,” to which she replied “Maybe it’s you.” I mentioned yesterday that I haven’t been writing creatively as much as I need to and I certainly think that has contributed to my funk. I was reading around ye olde blogosphere recently and discovered A Beautiful Ripple Effect, a site that reminded me that while accepting and listening to my mood barometer is important, more important say than feeling bad for being moody and dumping all the guilt on top of my fragility, it’s also important to recognize when, maybe, I’ve let myself sit in it long enough.
One of the features of the A Beautiful Ripple Effect is “10 Things That Make Me Happy.” It, along with my music blog post, made me thing that I should do more features and series. I enjoy categorizing and listing, as you know. So, what better way to feed my creative and cataloging side. So, I’m going to start posting 10 things Tuesday and invite you to join along. Taking inspiration from ABRE, I’ll begin today with the 10 things making me happy
1) It’s almost Spring!
2) Music (see last post)
3) Writing (including blogging)
4) Watching LOST with M
5) My new haircut
6) Doing Research
7) Did I mention it’s Almost Spring?
The Time Change
9) New possibilities
10) This poem:
Why is the word yes so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it
so that upon reflection
you could stop in the middle of saying it.
~vera pavlova
“untitled 17″ from If There Is Something to Desire
tuesday music bliss
Posted on | March 9, 2010 | No Comments
I had a weird day yesterday. The weather was gloomy and foggy. It made me want to crawl into bed and listen to music. It’s been a long time since I wrote about what I’m listening to. I’ve been listening to two kinds of music lately: folksy almost country indie stuff and female songwriters. Here’s some of what you should check out:
The Hymns and specifically their song “Train Song.” I can’t quite put my finger on what it reminds me of but there’s something kind of familiar about it.
My friend, Tijay who lives in Atlanta told me about a band he saw in Clairmont one random night two years ago. I kept trying to locate some of their tracks and now they’ve been signed to Virgin records which means you can enjoy their music, too. I love the spirit of “Love is a Murder.” Tijay said the last show he went to of theirs, they had a group of “clappers,” as backup, which is so completely hilarious it makes me love them even more.
I’ve liked Nellie McKay off and on for a while, since her duet with k.d. lang. But then she covered some Doris Day songs like “Send Me No Flowers,” which is simply lovely. I have a secret affection for Doris Day. I love her in films like Love Me or Leave Me and Pillow Talk. I blame my mother. 
Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons are a new fave. I love Chisel’s lyrics: “We’re far too young to be dying now,” which is a line from “Tennessee“. I also love “A Curious Thing” and much acclaim has been given and rightly so to “Born Again.” Lyrics Below:
Born Again
I’ve been feeling like my old self again
Because mama didn’t raise me to be no Christian
I’ve been drinkin’ to my own health again
Well, raise another glass for you’re unforgivenYou know I will, you know I will
I’ve been livin’ in a motel of sin
But I wouldn’t trade my life for the one you’re livin’
I’ve been walkin’ that long mile again
‘Cause I’d never fit the shoes like the ones you were givenAnd we all lose ourselves in the end
And we all just wanna get high, won’t you help me friend?
And did you ever see that sun come shinin’ in?
Well, then get born again
Get born againI’ve been livin’ in the old cell again
I wanna spend the day in the cold and freezin’
I’ve been talkin’ about my own hell again
‘Cause I’ve never met a soul like the one I was missin’And we all lose ourselves in the end
And we all just wanna get high, won’t you help me friend?
And did you ever see that sun shinin’ in?
Well, get born again
Get born again
Get born againAnd we all just wanna get high, won’t you help me friend?
‘Cause we all may lose ourselves in the end
Have you ever seen that sun come shinin’ in?
Yea, get born again
Get born again
Get born againI’ve been feelin’ like my old self again
Because mama didn’t raise me to be no victim
the see-saw is meant for going up and down
Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments
I can tell I haven’t been writing enough lately, not only here but in any space. Okay, it’s not that I haven’t been writing; I haven’t been writing creatively. I’ve been editing and working on scholarship, which feeds a completely different part of me. Too often, the intellectual pieces of me thrive at the expense of my more emotional, creative, reflective pieces. I can be, as my mom gently reminds me, “too much in [my] head,” meaning not enough in the moment, not enough living with my heart or passions. My current job as a professor prizes the intellectual and so spending time doing research and reading articles and preparing for class feels necessary, feels accomplished. A lot of energy goes into that work. Just as much, if not more, energy is needed for writing.
It takes time to reflect. It takes time to create. I’ve been giving my time elsewhere and I’ve accomplished some things I’m really proud of, but I can also feel that I need to carve out some time for my creative pursuits including photography now that it’s getting nice outside.
I’ve written before about the difficulties of balance and how I think our drive for balance is problematic, mostly because it elides the daily struggles of our lives and assumes that as women we’re supposed to be in equilibrium. My thoughts on this resurface just as the wonderful Brene Brown is launching A Week of Worthiness where we are to celebrate “our messy, imperfect, wild, stretch-marked, wonderful, heartbreaking, grace-filled, and joyful lives!” None of those descriptions are about balance or stasis or equilibrium.
I have never been good at standing still. I fidget in my sleep. I’ve moved house more times than most people I know. I crave the new project, the new design, the new course. I love planning reading lists and assignments. But, balance just isn’t my thing. I accept that. Being me means being along for the ride; it means changing my mind 3 seconds after I placed my order and speaking up so that I get what I want. I’m not about drama; don’t get me wrong. I am however, about having a full life. What I mean is that, like most of you, my life is busy. I try to be a good partner, a good teacher, a good friend, a good daughter. There are a lot of people and things that need my attention and I want to give my attention to them. They don’t always get it. I have to prioritize and that needs to be okay with everyone, including myself. So often when I feel overwhelmed by “all the things I have to do,” I find that a great deal of that pressure comes from me. Just a few sentences above I said, I try to be a good________. The problem is what is good enough for “good” is sometimes incredibly damaging to my own self-worth. I felt this way as a child. I vividly remember feeling like if I could prove my worth through good grades, being responsible: taking care of my brother, working a part-time job, and appearing somehow from the outside that I was a “good girl,” (gosh, the damage that phrase has done to me) it would mean that all of the pain and shame and trauma of being raped would disappear. It would mean that mother was well and healthy and present. It would mean that we would become exactly the way we appeared: the perfect family.
I was in a relationship, once, that had all the markers of happiness. There was romance, compatibility, affection. We never fought. Ever, not once. I’ve talked about that relationship before in this post where I explain how lucky I am to be loved today. Part of why I didn’t fight before was because I was afraid. I felt like it wasn’t worth the argument. Perhaps some things aren’t. But choosing nothing as important to speak my mind on exhibits the unworthiness I felt then. My obsession with being the perfect girlfriend collided (maybe they’re always connected?) with my feelings that I was unworthy of love and so if I could be perfect, or even good enough I would prove myself worthy of the relationship.
You know, I spent years (and money on a therapist) trying to figure out what happened in that relationship and why it was unsuccessful. There are certainly many factors to its ending, the most significant being that I preferred women to men, but many of my failed relationships come back to not being myself because myself wouldn’t be, certainly couldn’t be enough.
It took me a while to discover my own worth, again. When I talk to people who have known me for much of my life, they speak about a series of dark periods, as a teenager and later in my 20’s. There are so many ways I have struggled to reconcile these periods of my life, these versions of myself. I tried denial and distance but that ultimately left a “not quite right” feeling about that time, a time I needed to get where I am now. It’s a time where I made mistakes, a lot of them. Perhaps I treated people badly; I pushed away those who wanted to be close. I see now, however, that though I might not be proud of that girl who was selfish and furious and passionate, I’m also jealous of her. I’m jealous because I cannot go there again. I can never be her, again. This is the danger in nostalgia. There has to be a way to accept the girls I’ve been without feeling regret or jealousy or overwhelming nostalgia.
For me, being worthy is connected to that embrace. To say I am worth it means they’re worth it, too. Or, more importantly, saying they are worthy means I am.
reflection meme: then and now
Posted on | March 5, 2010 | No Comments
Last year when I presented at Allerton I showed this meme as an example of using a social media phenomenon in a way that encourages reflective practice.
I used it recently in my New Media class with some changes. I had students reflect specifically on how they read and wrote and asked them to compare those practices today. Again, with the students I began with 10 years instead of 20 because of the specific purposes of the exercise. Here I’ve stuck with the traditional meme instead of the class adapted one. But if you’re interested in how I’ve used this before, I can show you the assignment and chat about it with you.
20 years ago I
1. got the chicken pox during my Spring Break and went to stay with my Me-Ma where I read lots and lots of books
2. was an editor of my middle school paper
3. thought Dances with Wolves was boring and was terrified of It
10 years ago I
1. visited The Tate Modern Gallery months after its opening in London
2. voted for Al Gore
3. saw the Eiffel Tower
5 years ago I
1. was glued to Weather Channel’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina
2. lived with my friend Joe in a horrible and crooked apartment where lots of good memories were made
3. played SSX Tricky on the Game Cube
3 years ago I
1. spent Valentine’s Day snowed in and then went to Peoria and ate dinner in an old railroad car
2. used a Sony Vaio laptop
3. did my first AP Reading in Daytona
1 year ago I
1. developed a photography habit
2. learned just how much our basement took on water
3. said goodbye to many friends who moved away
So far this year I
1. have pushed myself out of my comfort zone
2. made a lot of plans
3. had my parents and grandmother injure themselves in significant ways (thankfully, they are all recovering)
Yesterday I
1. talked with a colleague about design
2. had dinner with my peeps
3. graded papers
Today I
1. taught 3 classes
2. shared secrets and laughs with a friend
3. talked to my Mom on the phone
Tomorrow I
1. will have dinner with new and lovely friends
2. will get some laundry done
3. will take a step in what I hope will be a new direction
In the next year I
1. will pay more attention to my instincts
2. will show my loved ones how much I value them
3. will create adventure
2009’s list, and from 2006
minutiae
Posted on | February 24, 2010 | 1 Comment
Seen on A Design So Vast and since a lot is going on right now, I thought I’d focus on some little things that represent the larger thoughts I’m having. Plus I love quizzes and memes and surveys about the self. I’d love to know your answers, too.
If you could come back as a dress, what would it be?
a 70’s maxi dress like the one Sharon Stone wears in Casino before she marries Deniro’s character
What’s your favorite color?
blue
What’s your favorite junk food?
that’s a tough one between Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza and McDonald’s fries
What are you most shy about?
I’m shy about weird things, too shy to tell you.
If you could have someone else’s body, whose would it be?
I would love the athletic build of someone like Serena Williams or MMA fighter Gina Carano
Who are your fantasy dinner-party guests?
Jon Stewart, the Obamas, Nikki Giovanni, Shaun White, Gretchen Blieler, Mary Carillo, Ellen and Portia
Where is your favorite place to have a drink?
anywhere that’s relaxed and chill; I don’t drink often so I don’t have a wide range of places from which to choose.
Underwear of choice?
Hanes cotton boy shorts
Last book you read?
I’m in the process of reading several. But the last book I actually finished was Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan and it was amazing!
Any pets?
no, though I am currently cat-sitting a lovely tabby until the current owners sell their house
What’s for breakfast?
depends on the day, usually: a bowl of Rice Krispies or Cheerios with banana, often: a cinnamon roll or muffin from Dunkin’ Donutes and sometimes: sausage biscuit or Red Baron sausage breakfast pizza
At age seven, you wanted to be:
a race-car driver
Do you have any superstitions?
Yes; I’m very superstitious. I don’t walk under ladders, for example. I also do not move a broom when I leave one home for another. I don’t play with the ouija board and I’m very respectful and wary of ghosts and spirits.
What’s your biggest self-indulgence?
probably getting my nails done
Favorite place to shop?
Amazon.com and Etsy
If you were an inventor, what would you invent?
a way to beam or sped myself quickly to various places around the world
Favorite car?
1969 Chevy Impala
What was your childhood nickname?
Dev or Bee
When and where are you happiest?
I’m happiest sitting among my friends and family and also when reading.
Who is your best friend?
Michelle
Who is your worst enemy?
myself
What piece of art would you most like to own?
The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt or some of Steven N. Myers’ x-ray photographs like Eucalyptus.
What’s your favorite vacation spot?
I don’t think I’ve found it yet but anywhere I go with M is an adventure.
Who is your favorite fictional character?
Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises
What’s your most treasured possession?
my laptop, iPod and my signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird
Your favorite song/band?
I was thinking about this recently. I love music so intensely and I have tons of favorites within numerous categories: (favorite cover: Wonderwall, Ryan Adams, favorite song to crank up while driving: Renegade by Styxx) but the one band I never turn off and who I’ve loved since I first heard them is Foo Fighters.
What current trend would you like to see disappear?
skinny jeans
Always:
take a moment before you speak; I need to take this advice.
Never:
become complacent
Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Insomnia coupled with Anxiety.
Where would you like to live?
I would love to live in England or Ireland.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Being surrounded by people I love or a good book and time to read it.
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
I don’t know exactly how to phrase this but I seem to be quite forgiving of people with talent. Many of my literary heroes for much of my graduate career were alcoholic, self-destructive assholes but boy they could turn a phrase. I don’t know if it was my need to save people or feel needed but I spent a great deal of time with these kinds of men. Now, I think, I indulge people’s insecurities and fears–but only to a point.
Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Atticus Finch, Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes, Jay Gatsby
Who are your favorite characters in history?
Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Dandridge, Louise Brooks, Cleopatra
Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
my grandmother, Robin Roberts, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Alice (Through the Looking Glass), Bridget Jones, Brett Ashley, Catherine Bourne (The Garden of Eden)
Your favorite painter?
I love Renoir and Manet.
Your favorite musician?
Jack Johnson and Brandi Carlile
The qualities you most admire in others?
Kindness, humility, a sense of humor, intelligence, ambition
Your favorite virtue?
Steadfastness
Your favorite occupation?
writing
Who would you have liked to be?
I’ll let you know when I figure it out but someone courageous and you know what, there is still time for me to become her; I’m working on it.
love as a practice
Posted on | February 12, 2010 | No Comments
M teases me that I say “I love you” a lot. She turned it into a phrase that we often say instead of those three words now. I am quite an expressive person and both telling AND showing others what they mean to me is important to me. I know that saying something and really expressing the sentiment through action isn’t the same thing. But I’m also a rhetorician and I love words and language and I know that no matter what gestures someone offers me, I still appreciate someone saying, “I love you” or “I’m glad we’re friends,” or “That was an interesting lecture.” It’s nice to hear as well as see, but without the action the words often feel empty and I get that.
This is what Brene Brown is talking about on her blog Ordinary Courage, which if you haven’t checked out, you totally should. Of course with Valentine’s Day coming up and the fact that we’ve been talking about cultural representations of love in my research class, Love has been on the brain. Brown essentially says that as humans, we need love.
We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When these needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We grow numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick. There are certainly other causes of illness, numbness, and hurt, but the absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering.
I think it makes sense. I think, though, we are culturally wired to want love to look, feel and be packaged a certain way. There are many kinds of love, all equally important to our lives but not always represented in our cultural texts. I’ve been thinking about the importance of my grandmother in my life, particularly the time when I lived with her, but also throughout my childhood. She raised me into adulthood. I learned so much from her that I wasn’t able to apply to my life at the time but do in some way, almost every day now. But the kind of bond and familial love we share is typically left out of discussions about love. Instead we get princesses and unrealistic romantic comedies and all of these assumptions about love are promised and we gobble them up greedily and often, blindly. Of course we want the kind of romance that’s portrayed in movies, but sometimes romance is having someone pump gas for you when it’s freezing cold outside and you forgot your mittens. I don’t remember seeing that scene lately. No, in films, love is epic. In life, love is, well, a process and one that, from the outside looks quite like everyday goings on.
I’m reading Donald Miller’s brilliant memoir, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and part of what he explores is the tension between reality, fiction, memoir and fictionalized reality. He writes about the difficulties he faced when trying to turn his memoir into a film and the way the producers and writers kept explaining the Donald of the film was not the Donald of the book or the Donald of real life. Miller writes that his real life is boring, that even the elements of his memoir that were moving and powerful don’t translate well to film. And what we typically see on film is a more shiny version of reality where people’s obstacles are overcome in 2 hours, where they fall in love in ridiculously cute ways and romance is expressed in extreme and obvious gestures.
Rarely do we see the everyday. Miller explains that the everyday doesn’t lend itself to the kinds of escape we seek in our cultural texts like films and stories. In class, we talked about why we need to escape and what would be at stake in not believing in fairy tales and romances. Many of the students said they understood that a story was a story, that they didn’t expect their lives to “work out” the same way but also admitted that like to hope that sometimes it might and that they sometimes think of romance in terms of happily ever after and often find themselves falling into the traps of wanting their love lives to be like the movies. One student said she struggles with her sister’s beliefs that romance should be like it is in fairy tales. I brought up how embedded these ideals about love become and how they frame gender roles and I think, at that point, the students who had been skeptical about “my love is a construct” lecture started to come around.
When I read Brown’s post I realized that some stories are not able to capture the real work of relationships. They don’t show love as a practice because even the gestures and actions of love in film and stories are on the level of professing. They’re about the show, often, or the visualization (for the sake of the storyline) not about the relationship itself. I realize that I raise questions about how love and romance are represented because the idealized love is dangerous when unachievable. What I do enjoy are the stories of couples still together after 60+ years who walk hand in hand. They’ve found a way to stick. I am drawn to real stories much more so than the imagined ones even if, at times, they seem just as fantastical and even if my desire for such a relationship may be as equally unrealistic as my students’ desire to live out their love lives like a movie; it’s a different script.
Ultimately, I agree with Brown that love has to be a practice. She points out that we have to begin within ourselves and though it may be something we’ve heard a million times before, it rings true to me. She begins her definition of love by saying, “we cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known…” This statement was like a sucker punch of yes! I sharply inhaled and forced myself to breathe deeply as I thought about my own love life. I spent many years uncomfortable with the idea of love. I distanced myself in so many ways from people who loved or wanted to love me. Some I intentionally hurt because I knew somehow that hurting them was inevitable, that I wasn’t cut out for love. I was too selfish, too busy, too absorbed in my own stuff. I made excuses, ignored phone calls. I was scared to admit to those I did love how much I needed them in my life. I used to think it was the commitment that scared me. Now I know, it was admitting that I was worth the effort it would take to love me that terrified me. I couldn’t cultivate love because I could not allow myself to be vulnerable. It isn’t that I would not, I did not know how. Sure, I could put myself on paper. I could talk about all the secrets in poems, in stories, in fiction. But outside of my writing group, I was cold. I took comfort in my intimidating demeanor; I’ve said before I wore it like a badge, all the hurt and anger and bitterness growing inside me became my solitude.
I still fell in love but I did not allow myself to fall deeply. I moved to England in a wild and restless move to follow what I thought was my heart but in reality, it was another kind of running away from myself. I could become someone else, anyone else. It was my chance to escape all the ways my life was in chaos. I’m sure you know or can guess what happened: all that crap was still there and would be for some time. I’d like to say, however, that being in England healed me in ways I am only just now seeing. It turned me around so I could find my way back to myself. The man I was with was lovely and kind and took care of me until I could no longer take being cared for, at least not in the way he could give. I look back on that time in my life as a great adventure. I feel lucky I was able to experience it. There are days I miss things about my life there but I also know I would be unhappy if I’d stayed.
M was the one who changed everything. There was something about the honesty and openness with which she lives her life that made me instantly feel completely unnerved. I wanted to know more. It took some time for me to come around to my feelings, though. I was too intellectual at the time and deeply invested in thinking about how I felt rather than feeling it. Mostly, it took time for me to admit that I’d met someone with whom I wanted to be vulnerable. More importantly, every time I looked at her, I felt like spilling all the secrets I contained. I understand the line from As Good As It Gets, “You make me want to be a better man” because M made me feel like I could be someone vulnerable and open. And that maybe I was that kind of person all along, I’d just been running so long from it that I had no idea how far I’d gone. I’m always going to be an intense person; it’s who I am. I feel things intensely, only now I embrace that intensity instead of burying it. I’m learning to relish my expressive self even if I end up being hotheaded or saying something silly. This vulnerability does not weaken me. It empowers me. And it makes it possible for me to love and be loved in return.
Anais Nin says, “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” In essence, love dies because we profess it instead of practicing it.
How do you enact love as a practice?
Valentine’s Day Gift Guide
Posted on | February 7, 2010 | No Comments
We’ve been talking in my composition course about romance. And with Valentine’s Day coming up, I have been thinking about my own definition of romance, of thoughtfulness, of what would make a perfect Valentine’s Day present. This guide represents stuff I like, which is, to me what makes a gift thoughtful, romantic. The most lovely thing I think someone can do for the one they love is to show they listen, to show that they know him/her. A box of chocolates and roses are typical. Fannie Mae pixies and Gerbera daisies, however are my favorites and to receive those would be sweet. To me, romance, is about gestures, not necessarily huge ones but personal ones.
So here are some thoughtful gift ideas that you might find useful for your own Valentine or yourself because sometimes you have to be your own Valentine.
1. <3 sterling silver heart necklace $75
2. Wii Remote with Wii Motion Plus (available on 2/14 but available for pre-order) $50
3. 2G Crystal Heart USB Drive $30
4. Pewter Love Tokens $16
5. Momiji Resin Dolls $12
6. Magnetic Changeable Desktop Turtles $22
7. Plush Microbes $8
8. Netflix Subscription starts at $8.99 (Build an Instant Queue of Romance movies, perfect for a night in; you’ll need a computer, PS3, Wireless Blu-ray Player, X-Box, or Roku in order to view the instant Queue)
9. I heart robot pillow case set
One robot says, “Good night, I love you.” The other says, “Love you too, sleep tight.” $40
10. Mini Rilla Wristlet $31
11. Pool Ball Bottle Stoppers $30 each
upon turning 32
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | No Comments
I turned 32 last week. On my actual birthday, I taught two classes and held office hours before heading back to Champaign for a middle school volleyball game and dinner with friends; M had to work. It was a low-key kind of day, with a lot of lovely phone calls, messages and FB birthday wishes. I appreciate them all.
I was walking across campus after classes and I felt so content that I didn’t even complain about the cold. Class had gone particularly well and was reminding me of all the amazing parts of what I do. For the first time in a while, I felt the moment move around me. I felt calm and happy and exactly where I was supposed to be.
Later, one of my students asked me if I freaked out about getting older the way “they” always show in the movies. (I’m sure to her, 32, seems old and something to freak out about). I responded by saying I was happy to turn 32 and as I said it I realized how true it was. I like even numbers so 31 seemed kind of lame. I like 32. It’s the freezing point of water; the amount of completed, numbered piano sonatas by Beethevon and is considered a happy number.
This week has been busy with job candidates in and meetings on top of classes. It’s been a challenging week but for me, it has also been a mindful one. I’m trying very hard not to think only in “to-do” lists but to concentrate on a few things at a time so that those things get all of my energy. This is not easy, especially for me who’s used to multi-tasking to the point of ridiculousness. I’ve been inspired, though, by my colleagues and some of the candidates’ presentations. It’s been a week of the universe reminding me of many things. During a writing prompt in one of my classes I wrote the following line and then continued the story below:
Between my grandparents’ kitchen and the garage I came of age, steeped in fierce independence and longing.
My grandmother’s small kitchen, the one of my father’s boyhood, contained all the secrets of the women in my family. It is where they sat to deliver bad news, perhaps because the brandy was close by on a shelf. Grandmother would stand on a chair, grab the glasses and the liquor, dust them off, pour and listen. I watched this ritual throughout my childhood, not because there was a lot of bad news in our family, but because my grandmother was someone in whom everyone confided. Everything happened in the kitchen. My grandmother washed my hair in the kitchen sink with shampoo that smelled like apricots. What grew between us, her hands in my hair, my eyes squeezed tight, was like magic, an intimacy for which I longed in my teenage life. I never fulyl understood the pull of that tiny kitchen. How when I think of my childhood, I come back there and not just to that kitchen but all the kitchens of my young life: my two great-grandmothers’ kitchens, the kitchen in the first house I remember clearly, and the kitchen of my young adult life, another kitchen I shared with my grandmother. It was in the kitchen where I first heard someone swear while peeling potatoes. I sat among the women as they shelled peas and peeled shrimp; stirred rue for gumbo, traded recipes and told stories. Men moved in and out of the kitchen, smelling and tasting whatever was in the pot, getting ice for their drinks, and more importantly, eavesdropping. It was in the kitchen I learned how to go off script, to add and subtract ingredients by taste or season. No woman in my family has ever followed a recipe as it’s written.I have my great-grandmother’s recipes with lines through them, her handwritten notes including the various occasions where the dish was served. These recipes are lessons in editing and revision. They’re about finding one’s own way. These are my great-grandmother’s stories. When I read them, I feel like I’m being let in on her secrets, only I can’t always understand them. There are too many contexts missing. Yet, I am convinced that one day they will speak to me. I cling to her memories as they intertwine with my own. I hear her voice as I fill muffin tins with batter and I am careful not to overfill each cup. I think of all the times I stood in her kitchen, listening in. It was in the middle of the women in my family, surrounded by smells of cornbread baking, I learned to tell a joke and most significantly, to tell stories.
I call my grandmother and she asks about the weather in Illinois. I have broken her heart by leaving the South, but she attempts to understand by discussing soup recipes; she has sent two different kinds to me in the mail. “One is more of a stew. You’ll like it,” she assures me. “I hope you can find some of the spices, though. I don’t know what kind of stores you have up north.” To my family, anything above Tennessee is North. Gran talks about her flowers. She lost some in the recent freeze. She talks about plants using names that almost sound like another language, a familiar tongue of rhododendron, hydrangea, dahlia, gladiolas. I’m not sure which flora she speaks of now, only that she thinks they are too fragile. Though she doesn’t say it, I think she is suggesting that she worries about me in the same way. I have learned, I tell her, to adapt. I talk about the shoe treads I bought last year, the various scarves and down vests I own. She tells me a story about my grandfather and a mishap trip to Alaska. She pauses in her own memory. I let the silence lay between us.
In my recollections, it seems my grandfather is two different people. My grandfather worked on old cars, lawn mower motors, whatever he could get his hands on. If he didn’t have a garage, he worked in the yard or small lean-to which provided shelter. “There are so many things to fix,” he’d say and turn up the radio which played the kind of music where words were not needed. I spent hours holding a flashlight for him. He taught me to change an alternator and replace spark plugs. I began to love the feel of dirt on my hands, beneath my nails. I loved the t-shirts ripped as rags on which my grandfather would periodically wipe his forehead. As if tuned to an internal clock, he’d say, “Time to wash up” moments before someone, my little brother, my mother or great-grandmother would tell us supper was about ready. I watched as the soap turned dark, running over his hands pooling in the bottom of the sink before running down the drain. In the kitchen, my grandmother held court and sent us both back out to the washroom, our hands not yet free of the grime. I giggled as though we shared a common secret, hidden in the dirt.
I was fascinated by my grandfather and, like my father, I loved him intensely. I was an affectionate child and remember both my brother and I snuggling into my grandfather’s lap to watch football games or movies. We loved to help him take off his boots, the only shoes I remember him wearing in my childhood. Matt and I would each grab a boot and pull, laughing uncontrollably when we fell backwards without a boot in hand. Granddaddy would smile and help us up to do it all over again. As we got older, my grandfather seemed to grow more serious and I learned that sometimes you love from a distance.
My brother who is a mechanical engineer, got the tinkering from Grandaddy and is at times, just as serious and distant as he became, as our father is, as I can be. I see so much of my grandfather in the two men of my life. Given their choice of professions as well as my own, I see now that “there’s so much to fix,” is a thread that runs through us all.
Tags: birthday > featured > reflections > storytelling
oh, brandi
Posted on | January 26, 2010 | No Comments
I’ve seen Brandi Carlile in concert twice now and my love for her grows exponentially each time I play one of her songs. I love her voice; it reminds me of home, somehow. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s easy on the eyes. The following video is “Dreams” from her new album, Giving Up the Ghost. It’s Tuesday, people, let’s all in fall in love.
what I am learning about friendship
Posted on | January 25, 2010 | No Comments
In my narrative class with minority scholars last week, we were writing about the happiest moments in our lives and noting why we selected those moments as the happiest. And then we wrote about the moment.
The story that came out of the moment I wrote about surprised me. Initially, I listed several moments and chose to write about riding bikes to the honeysuckle vines because it was a time I’d never felt more free. And there was something in my memory of that time I wanted to capture. However, when I started writing about it, I discovered something else. Here’s what I wrote:
When I lived on Darby Street, the neighborhood was mostly made up of boys. The one girl closest to my age with whom I was friends was Heather. Heather loved two things with deep obsessive possession: Michael Jackson and Barbie. I remember dancing in her playhouse to “Billie Jean” and watching the “Thriller” video her brother recorded from TV. I’m confident we looked ridiculous but we were young and free and Michael Jackson was cool, even if we were not.
Heather’s love for Michael Jackson was matched only for her love for Barbie. Though I had quite a few Barbies, I was only really interested in dressing them in outfits and doing stuff to their hair. Heather built scenarios and dialogue. I played along because I was her friend and she never complained when I suggested we play something. For some reason I convinced her to let me makeover her Barbie, which consisted of me cutting Barbie’s hair and coloring it green with magic marker. I vaguely remember coloring makeup on Barbie’s face as well. Heather was very upset and burst into tears at the exact moment her mother walked into the room to see if we wanted a snack. Her mother saw the Barbie, Heather’s crying and me, holding the marker or scissors I’m sure. I don’t remember what she said to me but I remember Heather drying her tears and insisting that I not get in trouble that she’d agreed to let me do a makeover and she was upset because she didn’t realize how bad it would look. I doubt her mother believed me but it was enough that Heather stuck up for me. I was sent home, feeling so guilty that by the time I’d walked the path behind Heather’s house to mine, I was crying. I tried explaining to my mother what happened but all she really understood was that I had upset my friend and destroyed her doll. To make up for it, she suggested I take my allowance and other money I’d saved and buy Heather a new Barbie with it. So, I did. And perhaps in doing so, I repaired my friendship with her. I don’t know how long we would have stayed friends if I’d continued living in that small Alabama town. If I had, I’m sure there would have been a number of emotional wounds we’d have inflicted upon one another that couldn’t be solved with buying a new Barbie.
Because really, women are often really horrible to one another. We’re competitive and cruel and sometimes take pleasure in one another’s misfortunes because it makes us feel better about our own lives. I’ve never been very good at being friends with girls. I always hated the drama of it all, the secrets, the ganging up on someone just because you could. I preferred instead to sit with the boys in their flatbed trucks and talk about music or movies or how much we couldn’t wait to get out of __insert small town name here___.
The first week in college, I met a girl who was completely cool. She seemed relaxed, confident, so sure of herself. I was floundering in doubt and as her friend, I felt a little bit better about fitting in. I spent a lot of time with her and her roommate as well as with the guy she was dating and his best friend. The guy she dated was a local musician, which meant I ended up going to a lot of shows. At some point, the girl ended up falling for her guy’s best friend. (I had no idea this was happening, at all, though looking back I remember how much time they started spending together). We were supposed to go to a show one night and she called me and said she wasn’t going. I debated going by myself, but ultimately, I stayed home. The next day on campus I ran into the musician boyfriend who told me he missed me at the show and wondered why I wasn’t with the girl who actually did go. I was devastated that she’d lied to me, but then I thought perhaps she’d planned not to go and then went at the last minute. So then I was upset that she’d forgotten about me but I could get over that. After all, she was one of my first good friends at college; I was willing to overlook my hurt feelings. But you know what happened?: she stopped calling me altogether. I tried calling her a few times but after about two weeks of not calling me back; I got the message. Later, I heard she and the best friend were dating. I saw them out one night, years afterward, and I went and hid in the bathroom.
I was wary, after that, of girls as friends. But it happens, like it always does, that you meet someone you just can’t NOT be friends with. One of my closest friends from undergrad used to make plans with me and then never call me because she got busy and forgot. I would cry, sometimes, about how lonely I felt. I’d just moved to Mobile and hadn’t made many friends at school. I was still trying to find my way and she was one of those people who always had something going on in her life. In fact, she is still kind of like that. I think she loves the highs and lows of the drama. I learned quickly that I had to call her or go to her house or make some kind of effort to be involved. I had a few friends like that who also ultimately, taught me about friendship, about the kind of friend I wanted to be. And as I became more involved in my major, my friendships grew beyond the classes I shared. I learned to appreciate all kinds of friendships and understood the need for a lot of different kinds of personalities in my life. I learned to be assertive as a friend and began to define myself not simply through the people with whom I hung out. (Though, I certainly think they helped me to see myself in particular ways which I, in turn, chose to develop).
My last years in college as an undergrad I was rich with friendship. I still consider people I met during that time as some of my closest friends. The same is true of my Master’s and eventually, Ph.D. programs. When I look back though, my female friends are a smaller number in relation to my male friends. As I get older, it’s starting to change a bit. I certainly don’t think it’s easy to be friends with women, but I do think it can be rewarding. I think it’s important for women to cultivate friendships, to share secrets and stories and themselves with one another. The female friends I have now are amazing. I feel incredibly lucky that I’ve met them at conferences, through M, in school, at work. It’s becoming more and more important to me that I have women in my life who are powerful, who make me feel empowered, who help me just by being in my life.
My concepts of friendship have evolved as I’ve gotten older but Heather’s example of friendship sticks with me now. Here is what I learned upon reflecting on that moment:
We should stick up for our friends, even when they do something that hurts us or with which we don’t agree. We should be honest about how we feel but love them anyway. We should accept our friends and appreciate how they are different from us and celebrate that. And we should forgive them. We make mistakes. We give in to our judgmental selves and we become weak and petty. We are selfish and forget that perhaps, not all of our friends want to do the same things we do. We’re human and with our great capacity to love comes the ability to screw up relationships because we can’t get out of our own way. But given that, we need one another. I have this sign that M put in her office at work. It says, “Life is not about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself.” And part of creating yourself is developing relationships to other people.
I know it’s harder now. The stakes are higher, our feelings, in many ways, more fragile; our hearts more vulnerable. But I have seen through my recent participation in women’s blog communities how much difference a sense of belonging and togetherness and community makes. And if someone is genuinely our friend, shouldn’t we offer the same kind of support and compassion we seek?
What I’ve learned about relationships after all this time is that sometimes it’s as simple as showing that you understand and sometimes that means replacing a Barbie and sometimes it means a lot more.
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