Tag Archives: parenting

Dec22

Spotlights, Strobe Lights and World’s End

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Brew_video_still

Still image from The Brew’s “Into the Remembering Sun” music video filmed at Castle Hill, Ipswich, MA

Last night we celebrated the end of the world … or its un-ending, or non-ending … with a local (but internationally touring and recording) band The Brew. Just outside, white-capped waves rolled one over another and crashed onto the dark, wild, and windswept shore of Salisbury Beach. We were dry and safe inside the Blue Ocean Music Hall where the band played their annual holiday concert (with plenty of space for dancing). They are gifted lyricists and classically-trained-musicians-nee-rocker-sons of friends of ours.

They invoked Mayan spirits (who predicted this ending date) with drums. Invited those spirits to be present. Then sang a lot of songs about endings and beginnings. We moved, swayed, sang, and kept time to their offering of pounding music.

So, okay, the world didn’t end last night. Or today. Not literally, though some people in the past weeks, have reason to feel as if private worlds have ended. Oh, and my family knows that feeling all too well … when it seems as if all of human existence has ended, that everything that matters has been erased, or should stop and be silent and pay attention. And in many ways, that’s true. Fragile, tender, vulnerable, fleeting, too-young and beloved parts of our lives are taken away, and nothing can stand up against that loss. Yet we are challenged to continue caring, living, and being engaged in by life.

Some interpretations of the Mayan calendar’s ending date actually talked about transformation. That it was a time of change, rather than cataclysm and destruction. The rising of a new era. That’s another invitation, isn’t it? Renewal. Rebirth. Reclamation.

Perhaps the gift of the ‘end of the world’ prediction is to ask ourselves, what would happen if we lived as if it was about to end? What would we do with that precious time, if it suddenly mattered, because it was limited? What would we release? What would we hold onto? Events in the world remind us, over and over, that we cannot know what is coming next. That NOW is the only gift of time — the only moment — we can be certain of inhabiting.

Brew_video_Still2

Still image from music video by The Brew

Last night, we gathered among friends. Celebrated. Together. If the world had ended … it would have been a good place to be.

But it didn’t end. So my head is full of dreams about another night, another day, and a whole year yet to come. In a season of lights, there is a time and place for the artists’s lights. For the whirling strobe and flashing spotlight. For fingers on guitar strings and keyboards and drumsticks and microphone. For lips and lungs, minds and hearts, to remind us to live. To put our hope and pain into words and share it with each other. To let go. To get sweaty and emotional and expressive under those lights, and remember to BE … to BE the primal and present and passionate mortal creatures that we are.

I offer the copyrighted lyrics of Into the Remembering Sun by The Brew, one of many songs we danced to on the night the world almost ended.

Into The Remembering Sun
by the The Brew (c) 2012

(Verse 1)
On a night when the moon gave no shoulder
Even the wind was feeling old
Even the stars found a cloud to hide behind
Believing my last hope sold
Believing my last hope sold

(Pre-chorus 1)
You come through the gate
Despite what I told you
Still I have no shame
Cause never did I fold

(Chorus)
and I know the world was changing
At least what I had faith in
Burned into the pages time was not erasing now

(Verse 2)
When the days age and relay accounts of love
Knowing now what time was
You and I will be the jewel in the crown
Thrown into the remembering sun
Thrown into the remembering sun

(Prechorus 2)
You run through the gate
Despite what you told me
Still you have no shame
Cause you love me to the bone

(Chorus 2)
And I know your world is changing
At least what you have faith in
You burned into the pages time is not erasing
Let nobody be mistaken
And we’ll walk away so babe don’t be shaken now (?)

(Chorus)
And I know the world is changing
At least what we have faith in
We burned into the pages time was not erasing now
Don’t erase it now

You and I will be the jewel in the crown
Thrown into the remembering sun
Thrown into the remembering sun
Thrown into the remembering sun

Sep17

Partings

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Today Sarah joins her college classmates and sets off by plane for Greece. She’ll study nursing in Thessaloniki for three months. Probably visit other cities, and even other countries, while she’s there. She’s considering more travel around Europe after the semester ends.

Why not? She’s young. Relatively footloose and commitment-free. When is there a better time?

And what can substitute for life experience, when it comes to education? Books and professors are great. They give us context. Theories. Even practical ideas that we can apply in the real world.

Yet lessons often come the other way, too. Firsthand. In person. As realities that we handle and experience. Eventually, to make space in our minds and hearts for greater understanding, we must touch, see, think about and feel events, cultures, people and ideas for ourselves. We cannot fully appreciate the similarities and differences that make the world so complex — sometimes beautifully so, other times tragically so — unless we take the chance to engage it.

She’s traveling to the second-largest city in Greece, steeped in history of many cultures, ethnicities and faiths. For instance, some of its inhabitants appear in the sacred text of the New Testament in letters from the Apostle Paul; she’ll walk some of the sacred sites I’m studying in books. She’ll reside in and explore ancient ground that was holy, thousands of years before Christianity was ever born, populated by Greek deities and temples. She will live in the multicultural realities of a city that was once a bustling part of the Byzantine empire, became a sanctuary for Jews outcast from Spain for a period of about 400 years. It joined the Greek nation in the early 20th century, burned in 1917, was largely rebuilt, and was home to thousands of refugees in the wake of a ‘population exchange treaty’ between Greece and Turkey in 1923. It remains a vibrant and diversely-populated place. For more detailed information, visit www.greecetravel.com/thessaloniki/introduction.html

We’ll stay here in Boston. Say good-bye and watch her walk across a threshold. It’s a coming of age moment, as she launches herself into the world, to learn lessons from her college classrooms and other lessons on the streets or in the cafes, shops, and other hangouts around the city.

I expect, as we say good-bye, that she will continue to experience her own partings. She’s leaving behind her high school self. Her friends are all already on their college campuses. Or finding jobs and moving away from home. Or serving in the military. Beginning the next phase of their young adult lives. Sarah, too, will let go of childhood and start anew.

When she walks through the security gate and later through customs, she will be walking into a new world. And a new part of her life.

And here? Though we aren’t flying away, but staying home, we’re also beginning the “next step” in our family life. Whatever that might mean … whatever shape it takes … big house, empty rooms, long work or school days, late nights, early mornings … two of us trying to make chances to connect. Finding purpose in our adult lives, now that we have started Sarah on the path to her own life apart from us. And always, the way parents do, thinking about both of our daughters.

Somewhere, Jessie fits into this transition. We’ve said good-bye before. Farewell to Jessie was different. This day, as Sarah waves and joins her classmates, this is the good-bye you’re supposed to say to a child. It means you’re doing what you should, helping your child take steps toward adulthood and independence.

After all, it’s not permanent. It’s not forever.

Yet we also realize … the young woman who comes home again after her adventures… she will be Sarah. But she will be a new, changed, more mature and experienced Sarah.

Sure, I thought I was ready to let her go. Stoic. I knew, cognitively, what this separation meant. I talked myself through it. Rallied around its importance and symbolism. Believe it’s good and right for her to do. But there’s a difference between knowing something and feeling it. It’s easy to know something with your head, but much tougher to live through it with your heart.

So I thought it would be easy enough to get ready and say farewell, because this departure has been happening in stages for several months. Years, even.

Yet we’re all on edge. Trying to be gentle with each other, but equally prickly and moody and temperamental. Right now, we often say or do the wrong thing, as often as we make the right choices, to help each other through this good-bye.

My husband I will be different, too. All of us – humans — change. Nobody is static, fixed to one moment in time and space, unable to transition. Life and consciousness itself is a response to stimuli. All humans, even when we feel stuck, are somehow in flux, moving, transforming.

We’ll all get through it. And blossom on the other side of the transition. Yet that doesn’t make the moment of parting any easier. In order to hold the love, you must also hold the pain.

Sep11

Be an Instrument of Peace

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I cannot pretend to have wisdom on a day like 9/11. Nor to truly understand the depth of its impact. Simply to acknowledge that it shook not just those who were hurt or lost, and their families and communities, but all of us. It changed our world view. It rippled out in layers of distrust and violence, but also in ever-growing rings of hope and resilience.

Just yesterday a friend and I remembered being together on the day that the Twin Towers came down. We’ll always remember where we were that day. Wanting to scoop up our children and hold them close. Not sure if the world was ending.

We recalled worrying for a friend who traveled internationally on American Airlines flights to London. Was she alive? As it turned out, she was okay, but she attended the funerals of several colleagues — crew members — for weeks afterward.

We remembered the arrival of a little boy from that devastated Manhattan neighborhood to our daughters’ school in New England. His home was not habitable; his school was closed.

This past weekend, our neighboring town of Rowley dedicated a memorial to 3 townspeople who were on one of the flights. They used as their monument, a piece of steel from the site of the crash. It was moving, yet can never express all that was taken away on that day.

In my father-in-law’s town in New Jersey, where the ferry leaves every morning for Manhattan, the memorial is larger. Too many folk were connected from the small seaside town to the large city center; their passengers worked in those buildings, and many never came home.

And finally, our minister Rebecca Pugh Brown uncovered and recounted for us the story of Andrew Rice, and his journey of loss and forgiveness. His brother David was in the second tower. Andrew was a journalist at the time, and much of the rhetoric after the day of 9/11 didn’t fit his view of the world. He was angry, but he sought some sort of resolution or healing step. His story is shared on the site of The Forgiveness Project.

Then, as David Rice’s summary tells us, “Later, a group called Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation were contacted by the mother of the alleged 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui, who has been held in solitary confinement in Northern Virginia since September 11. She had a unique request. She wanted to meet some of the families of the victims and ask for their forgiveness.”

We were nervous; scared of our Government finding out, and scared it would be just too upsetting. But finally a small group of us agreed to meet Madame al-Wafi in New York City in November 2002. As we waited in a private university building, a mother whose son was killed in the World Trade Centre went down the hall to meet her. We heard footsteps, then silence. Then we heard this sobbing. Finally they both came into the room, both mothers with their arms around each other. By now we were all crying. Madame al-Wafi reminded me a lot of my own mother, who had cried so much after David died. She spent three hours with us and told us how the extremist group had given her mentally ill son a purpose in life.

One day I’d like to meet Zacharias Moussaoui. I’d like to say to him, ‘you can hate me and my brother as much as you like, but I want you to know that I loved your mother and I comforted her when she was crying’.”

Today I’ll sit in a class at Harvard University called “Understanding Islam.” There is so much education, awareness and bridge-building to be done.

I want to work side by side with Muslim brothers and sisters, to create a world that has space and hope for all of us. That’s part of my work and purpose by attending Harvard. That’s why practitioners of Islam are studying alongside me, for the same reasons.

Today is a tense, emotional, difficult day. It’s easy to step awry.

Instead, breathe. Listen. Pray.

Pay attention to what you’re feeling. Honor it. Acknowledge it. Then let it wash through you. Let it arrive. Let it go. As much as that is possible for you.

Be an instrument of peace today. For yourself. For others. For our world.

Sep6

Belonging

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I just read, in an essay by Karen Montagno entitled Midwives and Holy Subversives, her description of the many circles of belonging in her life. She says, “My story is one of overlapping contexts. … I am an African American woman … instructor and practitioner of pastoral care, an Episcopal priest in a local parish, a seminary dean, and a parent. My communities are multiple, significant, and formative.”

It resonated with me. It’s really true for all of us as humans. I don’t mean that I identify with Karen Montagno’s unique and specific context, but with the more universal observation that we all belong to many overlapping circles.

Today I reflected on some of my circles.

In my life, you won’t be surprised that I put family first: my own birth family of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings. My husband, with whom I have shared a longer relationship than anyone else in my world, except my mom, sister and two brothers. My nieces and nephews. My extended family through marriage, with whom many special moments (happy and sorrowful) have been shared. And foremost, my daughters Jessie and Sarah.

Then there are so many other webs of connection. For instance, there are circles of social ties. Personal friendships developed across years of proximity and shared experiences, forming complex bonds that include raising children together, being single or inside marriages or partnerships, changing careers or relocating homes, setting and reaching for personal goals, and so many other milestones that we share with our intimate ones. Acquaintances through different organizations or shared interests … maybe we waited together in the schoolyard while picking up or dropping off children at class, met in line at Zumi’s, or sat side by side on the sidelines of a soccer game while our kids played in a game.

Then we have ties to our colleagues and peers in the workplace or the professional field; we share significant time together and many responsibilities. Plenty of us also dedicate time to service or volunteering in different organizations: mine happens to include Rotary Club and some civic organizations. And for many of us, this also includes our faith community, where we spend a rich amount of time that is deeply emotional and intellectual, but also involves engagement of much time and talent: many folks invest a lot of their lives in this sphere. And there are other connections to mentors and coaches and teachers. Plus more occasional and yet oddly intimate transactions with other people on whom we depend in some way, whether it’s a medical caregiver or a counselor, or perhaps the person working at the cash register in our neighborhood, or the train on which we commute, or the circulation desk of the library we visit. (I’ve also recently added a campus community. My professors, students and advisors. The staff and peers with whom I now spend several hours a day.)

And of course, we can identify with larger contexts. By ethnicity. By gender. By faith tradition. By sexual preference. By political affiliation. By nationality. By so many “markers.” I thought a lot, this past week, about the labels that are placed on us. The categories used to define us. The ways we are perceived by the world, and the ways in which we describe ourselves. Some of these labels and tags may be welcome. Many are probably weighed heavily with assumptions and preconceived ideas that we would prefer not to accept or have applied to us. It is wise to be thoughtful about these labels and categories. And to challenge how you many be applying them to others as well.

Today I’m glad to be the following things:

  • Mother
  • Wife and partner
  • Woman
  • Sister, daughter, cousin, niece, aunt
  • Friend
  • Christian with an open mind about other faiths
  • Member of First Church, Ipswich, UCC
  • Rotarian
  • Professional website developer and writer
  • Director of non-profit foundation working with cancer families
  • Graduate student at Harvard University’s Divinity School
  • Commuter by foot and train
  • Resident of Ipswich, Massachusetts in New England, USA
  • Independent (political party)
  • Writer
  • Artist

There are lots more circles of belonging, I’m sure. I belong to so many communties, large and small. And I have responsibilities to all of them. I feel a little overwhelmed when I consider all that I’m trying to balance right now. I bet we all do, at one point or another. So I consider my communities. I make checklists and put dates and commitments on the calendar. Prioritize. Do one thing at a time. Breathe. And try to do what’s possible and relinquish what I cannot do right now.

Meanwhile, here’s something that all adults who are legal citizens can do for their community. Vote! In Massachusetts, the primaries are today.

Voting is not just a privilege. It is a responsibility. It’s your chance to act. To speak with your vote. To care and be engaged in issues that affect you and your community. To the places where you live, work and play. The people with whom you belong.

Sep1

If These Walls Could Talk

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What stories would they tell?

Our daughter’s friend Shelly, who has been living with us since the spring, just moved along to college! She packed up her life in 9 hours. She’s taking some things to her mom’s place in Haverhill and others to her college residence near Boston.

Outside in the twilight, skyping by phone from Ipswich to Italy for a long distance BFF college good-bye between Shelly and Sarah.

She wanted us to see how tidy it all looked: boxes, bins and suitcases, zippered and capped, stuffed with her paraphernalia, organized into different piles depending on their destination. Then she carried down load after load of belongings. Filled a truck. She’s gone and the room is empty. Last night the street outside was filled with final hugs and reluctant good-byes.

We remain behind, as our children leave. Empty nesters? Us?

Well, there’s one empty room in our house, anyway. It has been home to several girls. It’s the same bright blue room that was once Jessie’s. (Jessie chose its colors back in 2005, when we were just moving in, right before she relapsed with leukemia for the first time.) Later it was the bedroom for two beloved Rotary exchange student host-daughters: Tina Danila from Belgium and Chicca Tizzoni from Italy. In between, it has often served as a guest room for family and friends.

Now it’s plain. Bare of any evidence of its latest occupant. Shelly’s “personality” drove away in a borrowed pickup truck … it used to be spilling off her corkboard covered in favorite mementos, a bright striped bedspread, the sprawl of her adolescent clothes and shoes and books. Now there’s silence where her music played and her voice rose and fell.

It’s a room that has known a series of comings and goings. Even when Jessie was alive, she only stayed there part of the time, because much of her life was also spent inside the hospital. We always had a suitcase handy, and the room was often the recipient of random bags stuffed with the evidence of her re-entry to home life, bringing along the detritus of hospital stays (craft projects, medical items, etc).

Over time, we have moved Jessie’s memorabilia to other parts of the house, and allowed the blue room to be a blank canvas for more recent occupants. So when they move out, it’s quite sparse.

Sarah’s room, on the other hand, is only temporarily empty of her presence. It remains filled with her “stuff.” She’s coming and going all the time. She’ll be back next week with suitcases and souvenirs from her cultural exchange in Italy. A week later, she’ll pack up and head out to her first semester in college.

In many ways, Sarah’s room won’t change drastically. We expect her to come and go for years, back home on many holidays and school breaks, using the house as her operating base, even when she’s always on the go. She can safely leave behind her overflow of gear and childhood belongings, and take only what she needs for a dorm room and college life.

For a glorious few months this summer, Sarah’s and Shelly’s friends, along with our exchange student Chicca, filled our house with their clutter, debris, noise and life. We loved it.

They made messes. Built bonfires in the back yard. Slept over in sleeping bags, in small groupings, unable to let go of each other. Generated odors from gym shoes and wet swimming gear. Cooked food for each other. Burned some of it. Moved furniture. Used computers. Ate all the snacks we put into the cupboards. Made noise late at night and early in the morning with their comings and goings. Played a concert of sounds in the house with slammed doors, shouts, chuckles, thumping footsteps on the stairs and in the hall.

They filled the house. And it’s meant to be this lively. To contain this much commotion. It’s spacious and old enough to welcome all of their activity, and not be more scarred for the experience.

I admit it. It’s lonely without all of them, even if it’s nice to have some privacy again.

Chris and I will stay here, while the girls are launched to their different destinations. Oh, the abrupt contrast between all those 18-year-olds, some so tall they had to duck to walk between rooms, filling up the space with their summer busy-ness before setting off for new adventures, and the current quiet.

The house feels too big now. In other ways, it feels as if our own lives are shrinking. Getting a little more hollow. Requiring less space … a smaller footprint.

Maybe that’s not true, but it’s part of how we experience the transition. It’s a natural and honest feeling from parents letting go.

Our house as painted by Miranda Updike in 2006.

In our town, our house is 130 years younger than the oldest homes. In other words, it was built c. 1770, but the oldest-standing residences in town go back to the 1640s.

Anyway, even if it’s only 230 years old, it’s seen a lot of life. Generations have been born, married, left home, returned and grown old within its walls.

Wherever you look, the house is full of stories of centuries of town life. It’s been a single home, it’s been wartime apartments, it’s been worker housing, it’s been multiple units with separate entrances of shared spaces, it’s been a combined doctor’s office and home, and probably seen many other configurations along the way.

It had two additions added in the early 1800s, so there are three chimneys and a total of nine hearths. The remnants of others, such as the large kitchen hearth, were largely removed during later construction along the back of the house, but nine fireplaces is plenty. Lots of cooking and warming of cold hands and feet must have taken place at these hearths.

Though its bones are solid, and were once built square and true, they have long since settled. Floors rise and fall, and some are thin enough to buckle or pitch with changes in the seasons. Walls tilt. Ceilings slope. Doors creak and latch with old cast iron hardware, but swing open mysteriously of their own accord (we often tease that Jessie is visiting, but then again, we mean it, too).

Every room and story has different details, as they have been altered over time for different uses. Soft or hardwood floors, plaster or panel walls, plaster or strap and tile ceilings, wooden trim (or not). Fireplaces are much-changed: none their original size, since all were made shallower. Chimneys lean, bricks curve unnaturally, and a few are missing.

When you leave the light on in the basement, you can see it shine up through cracks between the wide ancient wooden boards on the first floor. Some stairs lead to nowhere, or turn aside abruptly. Wallpapered rooms are still tucked up under the attic eaves, probably the former too-hot, too-cold territory of servants, household workers, or poor relatives (just guessing). Some doors don’t have a purpose anymore. Closets and cupboards were tucked into odd niches around the leftover space of the chimneys. Some rooms have been kitchens, later converted back into bedrooms or other spaces, but they retain leftover sinks, wiring or stove holes.

Despite centuries of use, we don’t think our house is haunted. Unless you consider Jessie’s visits to be that, and it doesn’t feel that way to us. She’s a lively, active presence, not a ghostly one. We never detected any other activities or presences before hers.

Like every other generation who has lived here, we have put the house to work and made it as useful as possible to us. Once upon a time, some of the rooms were used as classrooms and medical staging areas for Jessie, since she couldn’t always attend school. Some rooms have been (or remain) offices. This year, we added an accessory apartment downstairs, by restoring a wall that had been removed in the kitchen with some better plumbing and restoration of kitchen fixtures (granted through approval by the zoning board of appeals — ZBA — as a permissible use). We have a friend completing work on it. Eventually it will produce some rental income to help with college expenses.

Since our needs have changed, the house is changing with us. Sarah will continue to come and go. When she’s home, maybe her friends will land here, too. So the noise and activity level will continue to ebb and flow for a few more years. But in many ways, a long-term change in our lifestyle is setting in.

We’re (almost) empty-nesters. Aaaahhhhh!

Phew. At least we have friends from England coming to stay in October. They’ll roost in Jessie’s blue room. They’ve stayed here before, contributing their adventures to the collection of intangible experiences that fill our house.

Our family stories are being added to centuries of life that have animated this swaybacked antique house. We’re part of its old bones and skin. We’re part of its memory.

And it is part of ours.

Aug31

Doing It All

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Does this sound familiar to you?

You’re in the middle of a significant event. Everyone is quiet, listening intently. The entire space is hushed, leaning forward, catching the impressive, weighty, world-changing reflections of an august speaker. And then you hear a little one call out, unimpressed by all the pomp and circumstance, the most important words in her world, “Mama!”

Yesterday was an event called convocation. The new Dean of our school spoke to the incoming class. The professors processed in their caps, gowns  and colors. We listened to flute and trumpet. And a moving message from the Dean himself about the role of religion and spirituality in today’s conflicted world.

Students and faculty attended. Family attended. And as it turns out, very young children came along.

This is a small college on a large campus. It’s built around community. And that’s more obvious than ever, when students or staff bring their babies and toddlers to the formal events.

The child calling out? She put the entire experience into perspective again. It would be easy to take ourselves too seriously. Indeed, the Dean poked fun at Harvard’s view of itself as the oldest college in America, and teased all of us because he graduated from a British college that is over 600 years old. Much of his reflection (and his gift as a writer and teacher) is to humanize, with individual detail, larger issues. As a little one in her parent’s arms did for us, last night.

I believe the faculty on this campus understands that most of us are pulled in many directions, and fulfilling many roles in life. They are, too, although there’s probably an idyllic and abstract tendency among some of the them who live almost exclusively inside the academic bubble of the Harvard community. Contrarily, many gifted faculty also travel all over the world and work outside academia, too, and bring their real-world expertise back into the classroom.

I’ve been on campus all week, with n0n-stop orientation and info sessions. I’ve been so busy with these events, that I didn’t read the text on my cell phone, from my daughter in Italy. Or the one from my husband. I postponed replying to emails from clients. I couldn’t talk to friends. Yet I’m needed in all those parts of my life, too. Next week, when the schedule starts to settle down, I hope I’ll find more balance.

For now, I’m part of a small class of students with diverse backgrounds. Their average age is 26 … much younger than me. But I’ve met a handful of people in my position … returning after decades of life in the working world, with settled homes and families and careers, now going back to school for some reason. People from several nations, and all over the country, with all sorts of goals for their degrees.

It’s my experience (after a few days of orientation, so take it for what it’s worth) that the college welcomes us as complex people with multiple roles in our lives. Yes, I’m a full-time college student again. I’m also working and available to clients. I’m a mom with a college student who will need support from time to time. I’m a spouse who’d like to be present in my relationship. I’m a volunteer for several organizations. I’m a friend with connections to tend.

Andover Hall

So I was a member of the audience listening to HDS’s Dean, David Hempton, speak. Trying to catch every word, as we gathered outdoors under the tent on a bright August evening, at the close of summer and coming of fall, with Andover Hall in the background. He offered his first words addressing the school as our new dean.

And then a classmate’s child cried out, “Mama!” No one paused to frown and criticize. There wasn’t a gasp of outrage. A patient father went off to get a red plastic wagon. A mother (and student) escorted her young daughter inside, probably to the bathroom. In the rear, a baby gurgled.

Education in the context of life. The dean’s words at the front of the tent. The baby’s call for “Mama” in the back. I think they “get it” about life and equilibrium. I hope so. It’s why I believe I’m called toward this vocation. You can’t really separate these parts of self: mind, body and spirit.

Aug27

Exchange

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We’re trading away one experience for another, one season for the next, one set of rhythms for a different one, and even swapping a native tongue for a second language. There’s change in the air, for everyone, including our family. It’s different for each of us, but there’s the common experience of preparing for partings, farewells, movings, relocations, new beginnings, and transformations of all kinds.

Today we exchanged dollars for Euros. Both girls have their plane tickets and passports. They’ll change planes at London’s Heathrow Airport tonight and land in Milan tomorrow morning, where Chicca’s family will meet them. Sarah will visit there for 2 weeks, then come home briefly, before she leaves again for college studies abroad in Greece.

All around me, as I run errands today, picking up this-and-that on our last-minute shopping lists, parents and students are stocking up on notebooks and pencils, markers and backpacks, sneakers and snacks. Just a few days (hours in our case) to go, and so many logistics to complete. Bills paid. Medical forms completed. Schedules printed. Registration forms filled out. Permission slips signed. IDs ready. Transportation arranged. Meals organized. Even housing and dorm room supplies for older students.

It’s a rush. It ends – and starts anew — at a doorway, a gate, or a portal of some kind. Our children, our families, our friends, our loved ones … we, ourselves, are destined for an exit, a passageway or a border crossing.

Even if it’s as simple as exchanging summer habits for autumn ones, warm-season activities for crisp-fall ones, and pulling out long sleeves, close-toed shoes, and extra layers … we’re all preparing. Packing up necessities. Getting ready for change.

For some families, it’s a change of caregivers for medical support. Transition from hospital to clinic.

For others it’s the move from home to college or boarding school. Or simply the start of class hours after a summer of different freedoms.

For some it’s a different sport or extracurricular season. Return to winter work hours, with a different pace and dress code.

The days feel long and lazy, even now. We might stop long enough to lift our face to the sun, and let its heat kiss flushed cheeks and closed eyes, before we keep moving.

Yet the pace of life is already quickened, urgent, thumping with a vitality that drums out the rhythm of change. In a few hours, Sarah and Chicca carry backpacks through security gates, leaving behind English-speaking countries, as the next step in their journeys.

All of us, one way or another, are on the move.

Aug26

To Swear or Not to Swear

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One of my friends considered not going on a date with a new “guy” because he describes himself as someone who doesn’t swear. She was concerned that he might not be zesty enough for her … as in … too nice, too polite, too banal.

Uh-oh. If we choose not to swear, are we dull? Stuffy? Self-righteous? Repressed?

Is swearing sexy? Hip? In touch? Wordly? Authentic? Real? Daring? Defiant?

Like lots of us, I grew up in a house where cursing was unacceptable. Fortunately or unfortunately, I overcame that early training. I curse. Not lots, but more than some people (though I hope it’s in limited situations) and much less than other people.

Mind you, I have an opinion about this bad habit of mine. (See, I already used the word “bad.”) It’s hard not to sound judgmental of myself, because in general, I think profanity is unnecessary. I have access to an amazing language, and plenty of creative and colorful and insulting ways to express myself without using socially forbidden words.

Yet unsavory words now pepper my vocabulary from time to time. Mostly in private conversation with friends, if I’m very emotional when describing something, or when I’m driving by myself and frustrated over traffic situations, or at home and have a domestic accident (drop or break something or hurt myself).

The problem with swearing, at all, is that it slips out at less desirable moments. In public. In front of the kids. At work. You slip. You swear. Oops.

It happens in places where you’d prefer not to be heard using profanity. For a number of reasons: unprofessional, socially awkward, undesirable role modeling or provocative.

Swearing is a habit, like any other, that can become persistent and sub-conscious. You might not notice how much you do it, unless you start to pay attention (to times when you use it, how often it pops into your conversation, the context in which its more common for you, etc). Even if you think you’re in control of your language, sometimes the wrong words just tumble over your tongue at embarrassing or appropriate times, especially if you’ve gotten into a habit that makes them easier to use than other phrases.

Which of course leads to an argument for the virtue of not swearing at all. And yes, back in the olden days, when my kids were younger, I really cleaned up my vocabulary.

“F*ck!” turned into the exclamation, “Fffffffuuuuhhhhh … Fudge!” or “Frick n’ frack!” (Although some folks prefer the elongated “Fudge-sicles!”) “Sh*t!” became “Sssshhhhhh … shoot!” or “Sssshhhhh … sugar!” I even used crazy ones, like “Tough shnoogies or tough banana peels.” (Eeewww, are you scared yet?)

As a point of reference, feel free to enjoy these creative studies of the many uses of the word f*ck. It’s also available on Youtube. *sigh* Funny and naughty and ticklish.

My family will even argue that “frick” itself is a swear. I don’t think so. I think it’s lifted from something like Looney Tunes, and might be a substitute, but since I’m not using the actual naughty word, it shouldn’t count against me. But since it bothers others, I’ve deleted it (for the most part) from my vocabulary anyway.

Often enough, though, a swear word sneaks into my speech patterns. More often than I’d like to admit. (Usually when I’m very deep into an emotional conversation with close friends. But in other situations, as I admitted earlier.)

It doesn’t surprise me so much when I do it, because I know that I have this bad habit. Yet, I’m still shocked, at times, when I hear it from others. Especially when it seems to be a routine part of vocabulary, and the person who uses the profanity is virtually desensitized to it.

When my child or her friends, for instance, drop the f-bomb, it feels shocking to me. After all, we don’t ever aim swears at or near her. Or her friends. Why would they think it’s okay to use them in our vicinity? Or around each other?

It especially alarms me if profanity is aimed at each other.  Curses flung like missiles, lobbed with the intent to hurt, are danger signs (in my opinion).

If another parent swears near or at their child? I’m horrified. Why teach your child that it’s socially acceptable at all. Really, it’s not.

Or worse, why ever model for your child that it’s okay to call him or her names? Should our children ever think that it’s justifiable for us – or anyone else — to call him a “d*ck” or her a “b*tch?” If we heard a boyfriend or girlfriend calling our child such terms, we’d be alarmed, right? If parents use such terms around children, how can our children ever believe that such treatment or expression is off-limits? (Again, such language regularly aimed like a weapon at children or partners can be a red flag … it’s a cautionary sign.)

No, we’re not saints. Yes, we get angry at each other. Friends. Family members. Strangers. Ideally we don’t let rip with profanities. Occasionally we might cross the line.

But weeding out this habit, like any other that embarrasses you, can pay dividends. If you pay attention, take note and try to change your behaviors around its use, it can effective. Over time you can eventually minimize or eliminate it.

Then you’re less likely to slip up. Do it in the wrong place or time.

In addition to other forms of profanity, there’s also the casual misuse of sacred names. The use of “God or “Jesus Christ” as part of a curse is offensive or insulting to many people. This was taboo in my childhood (my dad was a minister, after all, and we were always aware of our public behavior).

In a way, part of my liberation as a young adult was to start using this forbidden language … even if I never thought it was socially “okay.” I remember experimenting with its unfamiliar, but oddly-satisfying use as a form of cursing, once I was out of the house, beyond hearing range of my parents and the disapproving feedback of my immediate childhood church.

It remains a casual, unconscious part of my vocabulary now. I still don’t think it’s okay, but I do it. Sometimes, when I really pay attention, I manage to convert such a curse into something else. I’ll say, “God bless it!” But I mean the opposite, of course (“God dammit!”) Does it count if you say the right words, but mean the wrong thing?

All in all, I realize that I have allowed a distasteful (to me) habit to creep into my life, and I want to weed it out. I’m about to go to graduate school to study sacred subjects, for goodness sake. I want to be sensitive about this habit, and respectful to others and myself, and eliminate it, because I’ll feel like a better participant in a diverse, multi-faith community if I’m not deliberately offending people with this language.

This also makes me wonder about when people suffer from Alzheimers or dementia. Forbidden curses or sexually explicit expressions appear in their conversation, and yet often these words come from people who would never have sworn or spoken inappropriately to others, before their illness progressed. Why does it happen? An educational article from an Alzheimer’s resource explained this process.

This disease damages the formal language centers of the left side of the brain, but doesn’t initially impair the right side of the brain. The right side of the brain stores specialized functions around language and communication:

  • One part  of the right side of the brain handles singing and music, which is why people can sing familiar hymns or lyrics,  but can’t finish a sentence.
  • The second specialized function on the right side is “automated” or involuntary retrieval of social skills involving language. Such as, “Hello.” “Bye.” “Please.” “Thank you.” “How are you?” “Fine” “Okay.” “Oh, yes”. This skills are so engrained that they pop out, even appear as appropriate responses to polite questions, but may not indicate that the speaker actually knows what she or he is saying, or that they understood what was said to elicit this response.
  • The third specialized function of the right side of the brain involves taboo or socially-forbidden words and phrases. Impulse control areas of the brain have been damaged in many situations, so that this taboo language is suddenly accessible without any barriers or filters. As the person’s brain seeks access to language, and cannot use the left side’s formal language center, it may use alternatives, including this stored body of learned words that were once off-limits. They’re substituted without any attachment to a specific meaning, or appropriateness of use. They just emerge, without any editor, since areas that manage impulse control have also been damaged along with the formal language center of the brain.

For the record, let me also say that just because you use clean, polite language doesn’t make you a saint, martyr or even a “good” or “bad” person. All those qualities are inside you. Words are just an external expression.

And as we know from specific illnesses like those described above, certain physical conditions can trigger the use of such speech. So you cannot always read someone’s character or health based on what comes out of his or her mouth.

So should we never curse? Heck. Gee. Blimey.

I think we’re entitled to let loose sometimes. For instance, I happen to like the image on the left.

I’ve mentioned “Book of Job” moments in my life. When I’d hurl invectives, scream primal screams, curse and swear at the ocean or the night sky, because the hurt or anger wouldn’t stop.

Our emotions are valid. Expressing them is normal and healthy. Occasionally doing it with profanity is part of our human condition.

So please understand, this isn’t about suppressing your feelings. You should express yourself. Openly. Honestly. Deeply. Safely.

I’m not suggesting that profanity doesn’t have a place and a role in our world. Just that it’s use has social and cultural weight; so there’s a time and a place to use it. Or not. (Most of the time, it’s probably not necessary.)

If I keep this commitment to myself, and work on this habit, thereby eliminating curses from my conversation, will the absence of swear words make me less zesty as a person? Less appealing? Less authentic? Less in touch? Less?

I don’t think so.

Will my choice to edit swearing out of my vocabulary affect others? Make them self-conscious? Cause others to watch their language and filter themselves around me? Maybe. Although I don’t want people to clean themselves up, change their personal forms of expression or communication in my presence … or to think they have to change …  paying attention to our use of language can’t hurt any of us.

The friend who hesitated to date the new “guy” with the clean language, who won’t swear? She went out with him anyway. Apparently he’s interesting. And a good kisser. He’s got plenty of edginess and opinions … with and without “f*ck” and “sh*t” in his vocabulary. Nice, but not too nice.

I’m tempted to toss out one last swear in this journal. For the road. For old time’s sake.

But I won’t. I’m starting my work on profanity (or its lack) right now.

Fudge.

Aug23

Au Natural?

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I’d call this a confession, except that it’s not a surprise to anyone who knows me. In many ways, I’m not very “girly” in outward appearance and behavior.

  • Can’t stand the sensation of makeup on my face; don’t wear cosmetics.
  • Don’t apply lashes or artificial fingernails.
  • Stopped using any hair color; let it grow out flecked with grey.
  • Just wash ‘n go for the hair styling (don’t even blowdry, curl or brush it).
  • Wear skirts occasionally; and dresses, hardly ever.
  • Don’t pad anything (have enough natural for wherever it’s needed, and then some).
  • Choose to avoid wearing heels (hurt my feet, can’t walk, can’t stand very long, back hurts, knees hurt, lose my balance, sprain ankles, that kind of thing).
  • Refuse to weigh myself. (I am what I am.)
  • Shave legs on an urgent as-needed basis only.

There’s some hope, if you’re feeling concerned about my professed lack of “girliness.” To be clear, I’m discussing this in terms of appearance;  presenting myself or undergoing salon treatments to achieve what we culturally perceive as a feminine style. This is in contrast to talking about “girliness” in reference to biological gender or sexual orientation, which are separate items. (As I was reminded last weekend during OWL / Our Whole Lives training, human sexuality and gender roles and cultural typecasting and body images and our ideas about femininity are all very complex.)

What I do like, that might be considered “girly?”

  • Enjoy wearing bright colors.
  • Enjoy loose, flowy clothing. (Girly?)
  • Recently underwent my first bikini wax. (Wow, that’s an experience all by itself. Do research if you want more details. Otherwise, just imagine a really friendly woman working around your naked nether regions with hot wax, chatting and then giving you a quick warning as she uproots hair follicles. You consent to this procedure, by the way. And you thank her for her expertise.)
  • Enjoy pedicures: relish some aspects of getting my toenails trimmed and polished, though my soles are ticklish and I won’t let salon staff use nail files (can’t stand the sensation).
  • Love massages.
  • Feel naked without a pair of vivid earrings (also collect them from wherever I travel).
  • Fond of henna tattoos.

So there’s a modicum of “girliness” going on in my life and self-care, if that’s how you define “girly.” (And remember, one of my daughters was a princess in style, and I cheered her for that approach to life. So don’t think I’m setting up the pros and cons of this style. I’m not.)

My older daughter Sarah learned to apply makeup without any help from me. Years ago. Maybe friends advised her? At first, her application (mostly around the eyes) was extreme: dark and thick. It made a definite statement; it also suited her age and mood in middle school. Now she wears a more neutral palette: open and confident and attractive in a different way. Like many women, including my friends, she prefers to travel with mascara, eyeliner and lip balm, at a minimum.

Lots of my friends feel that way. Practically naked without some cosmetics. The baseline depends on the person. Some just need lipstick and mascara. Some need foundation, eye liner, mascara, eyeshadow, eyebrow pencils, lipstick, blush and whatever else might go with all those layers. Emergency touch-up supplies packed tidily into compartments and available as needed while on the go.

A few friends have even had their eyes tattooed with eye liner (kohl-style). Or had lashes glued on in a more permanent way. Hair extensions. Or parts of their bodies slowly defoliated with treatments that are relatively permanent.

Everybody feels differently about what they want and like to do to their bodies. Some of it seems like torture to me, and yet we enjoy the results, if not the process. Some of it is easily removed or reversed. Some lasts a while. Some, I suppose, is permanent, but that’s probably in the realm of surgical alteration and not what I’m thinking about right now.

I found a picture of me and our exchange student Chicca. Our feet, actually. With newly painted toenails. We sipped Zumis and finished pedicures, got some White Farms ice cream, and went for a walk on Crane Beach.

Walking in sand is a natural exfoliation treatment, right? As if I needed a reason to walk there. Or to feel good about myself while doing it.

I don’t. I do.

You? Me? We are beautiful, however we choose to make ourselves up. Or not. To be “girly” or not. To be whomever we are, in whatever ways we want to be. Inside. Outside. Painted. Bare. Perfect. Flawed. Me. You. Just ourselves.

Aug22

Listen for the Music

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This past weekend I finished 25 hours of training in order to teach or facilitate OWL (Our Whole Lives) curriculum for either middle school or high school students. It’s an intense, honest and complex program to present information with the core values of self worth, sexual health, responsibility, justice & inclusivity. It was created as an non-religious approach to this subject by UUA / Unitarian and UCC / Congregational denominations so that it can be used in secular settings; companion books available from UUA or UCC denominations discuss the role of faith in this context.

I attended the training for several reasons. It’s a balanced curriculum that has been taught by many organizations, including my church, and is used nationally by thousands of churches, health programs, schools and military facilities. I wish it had been available to my own children in our town; we had to provide this information through other resources. (Our children need factual and comprehensive information on this topic, but that’s a different conversation, and may be uncomfortable for many families from different faith backgrounds or traditions, yet I cannot apologize for my beliefs, many based on personal experience, around this topic.) At some point I’ll probably be a facilitator for this program in my own faith community. Additionally, the information seems invaluable in the context of graduate classes about hands-on care for different constituents such as teens or trauma victims.

Yet one of the best messages I brought home from the training wasn’t about the content of the curriculum itself. It was about working in teams, respecting different backgrounds and viewpoints, and finding ways to honor each other’s talents, strengths and approaches to facilitation. Especially within this message and value-laden context, we worked to accept variations in “body part” terminology, for instance, in order to appreciate the intention of what we were discussing together.

At the beginning of this long weekend of training, we all wrote up a covenant about how we’d work together. And one of the debates we held was about the use of language … could people use “street words” or “common discourse” for body parts in a class that deals with human sexuality, or should we stick to medical terms? For example, should we avoid “boobs” and only use “breasts?” (There were more colorful examples, but my point here isn’t about shock-value, it’s about getting past shock-value.)  We wondered aloud.

Some people find the more casual or common terms to be vulgar or offensive in origin. Others habitually use them, and it’s hard to talk about those topics or body parts without slipping into vernacular language.

Of course, part of what we discussed was the necessity to be aware of our language. The words we use convey values and messages. On the other hand, we wanted people to speak freely.

In the end, though, we decided that if the words were used to refer respectfully to a body part, and weren’t used in a name-calling connotation, that people should use the words they most comfortably choose. Within this context, for the purposes of our classroom discussions, “boobs” are as okay as “breasts.”

(Note: Please understand that there is a whole educational unit about language, the categories it falls into, and when and where to use it, what’s negative, what’s neutral, what’s positive. We do want facilitators and students to consider their language for its own role conveying cultural and personal messages.)

The final agreement, when we discussed this use of language, was to “listen for the music” of the experience. This idea comes from curriculum around peace-making for younger children. (I want to give full attribution but don’t know the author of this curriculum … it’s used in some UUA / Unitarian and UCC / Congregational churches.)

The metaphor is that many notes, chords, stanzas and instruments comprise music. We don’t all have experience with specific types of music: classical, for instance. Or we’re not experts in it. If we attend such a concert, we don’t always remember all the intricacies within a song, just the sense of the music. We can’t analyze every run of chords, every interplay of wind and string, every nuance and bridge. We have to let it all stir together and form an overall impression. We have to “listen for the music” and what it means to us, what it says to us.

When we remember a classical song later, if we’re lacking an expert’s lexicon to discuss it, we recall the music’s overall impression. We discuss or consider the emotion that comes with the experience. We’re appreciating its intentions.

This also applies to conversations fraught with language and discussions about human sexuality, relationships, etc. We wanted the same level of listening within our classroom conversations.

We sought a similar tolerance and appreciation. We might not remember every word. Or be able to agree with every statement.

We wanted to get past the use of the specific terminology to the larger conversation we’re all trying to hold together, and the information we’re sharing.  We got there, but only after much discussion and agreement to use the standard of “listen for the music.” We spent a whole weekend, preparing presentations on many different units of information, organized and presented by lay teachers from all over the country, with many different professional and personal backgrounds. We all learned from each other. And it stopped being about colloquial uses of specific words, and became all about how to present and share this information so that everyone could safely talk about it and explore it and learn from it. We “listened for the music.” And we heard it.