I subscribe to several listservs from my alma mater's alumni network, principally those that provide career networking advice. These usually include job postings and questions from people looking for advice. Occasionally, something asked, or something answered, will set the group afire.
I admit it... it is almost the only time it is entertaining or, even, of interest as most of the job postings are in NYC and not from the kind of industries where I would want to work.
This week, someone asked for morning rituals of *successful* people which led quickly to a discussion of the meaning of successful as well as a lengthy post about morning pooping.
Yup, you read that right... one person wrote emphatically about the importance of the morning poop for highly successful people, particularly as one ages.
I admit that I thought it was moderately entertaining... but there were those on the group that thought it was offensive ... so then we had a plethora of responses regarding offense, poop, and what a tiger can abide.
This was my favorite response:
Heaven preserve me from littleness and pleasantness and smoothness. Give me great glaring vices, and great glaring virtues, but preserve me from the neat little neutral ambiguities. Be wicked, be brave, be drunk, be reckless, be dissolute, be despotic, be an anarchist, be a suffragette, be anything you like, but for pity's sake be it to the top of your bent. Live fully, live passionately, live disastrously. Let's live, you and I, as none have ever lived before.'
Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, October 1918
potentially, that is.
I have no idea who Violet or Vita are...and I have no time to research it, but I share the tidbit because I don't have the energy to write anything else or finish the many drafts in my folder.
My friend, A, and I decided to drive to Montreal for the conference. She has moved back to Massachusetts and lives not far from Vermont, putting her only one state away from Montreal. Besides, we would have hours to catch up, dissect issues and people, and in general hang out. The trip up seemed fast. There was nearly nothing to distract us ... except the vistas, and some of those were so covered in fog that you could only imagine what lie beyond the mist.
My friend was somewhat nervous about crossing the border... we had our passport check before we left Massachusetts so as not to have to worry. The four and half hours crossing through Vermont went so quickly we were unprepared emotionally for the border when it seemingly jumped up before us. We got to the open window and handed the guard our passports. He asked where we were going, and my friend offered, "To Montreal for a conference." He looked at us and smiled, "Anthopologists?" he said with a French accent. I asked him how many he had seen and he put his hands up and looked up and to the side, I don't know... he smiled again and we were on our way.
Turned out crossing the border into Canada is a piece of cake.
Coming back to America, on the other hand, is more like a pie in the face.
The grouchy customs officer took our passports and asked us what we had to declare. Nothing. We hadn't had time to sight see or buy trinkets. He scowled at us and we smiled. Then he said to turn the car engine off and open the trunk. I could hear him unzipping the luggage. What was he looking for? Had we made a mistake by not buying anything? I had just joked with my friend that we should stop at the duty free. We told him we were at a conference. Was that code for something illegal?
Our time with the customs officers did not end there. Let me say that knowing we were near the border and my friend had planned to get gas just over the border, I had been holding it. But I really had to go. This was my most pressing concern throughout, but I was also concerned about why it is that he had decided to call our actions into question. He told us to pull up and get out of the car and go into the office. He had our passports, so there wasn't anything we could do. He hadn't punched in our numbers or done anything but a cursory look in the trunk.
In the office, we had to fill out claims forms, we were instructed to read the back carefully and sign. It was the standard bit about not carrying more than $10,000 in cash. Neither of us had any trouble signing that... we had about 100 bucks between us. Then they rifled through our purses. My agent unzipped all of the little bags I keep in my purse: the coin purse, the toiletries, the pencil bag. When he pulled out my computer and the books, he said, I guess you were working. That would be the only clue we had in the whole ordeal as to why we were being searched.
I was admonished to not carry medication that was not in its original packing. My friend was threatened with a $300 fine for carrying a clementine (that came from a grocery store in Massachusetts) in her purse.
The other agent asked my friend if it was her car...and if there was anything in it that wasn't hers. She said no, it was a brand new car... barely in her possession over a week. They left us in there, not allowing me to use the bathroom, and searched the car. I watched as they sauntered over to another car searching while leaving us to wait in the office. Obviously there was nothing for them to be alarmed at in our car... they never even found the other clementine. I wondered if they just needed to continue to be hardasses since the first grouch had decided we were undesirables... maybe we shouldn't be let back into the country.
I know, I know...they are just doing their jobs. However, since we live in the discourse of fear country, we must create monsters out of really ordinary situations. While we were waiting, another customs agent came in carrying a bag of offensive grapes. And she gasped, "They have bread in the trunk." Not to mention the people she was talking about were BLACK and didn't speak English perfectly. Yeah, lady, I got your number... now that you have them pulled over, there has got to be something wrong with them.
We got in the car and drove away fuming. How ridiculously these border agents handle the situation ... skull and daggers, as if... in the world of fear you must have monsters. On that day, we were chosen to be monsters and then rejected as light weights. For me this came on the heels of another friend having crossed into Arizona from California ... to be stopped at a checkpoint and asked her nationality. Seriously? Do I need a passport to cross state borders now? As I prepare for my Christmas trip to California in the car, I am stewing with the reactions I will have ...
I can report that I passed in a car from California to Nevada Sunday night without incident...
I decided I need to think of fear and borders in other realms as well. Here's one that I just got around to listening to... and I think you will see what I mean about fear/borders if you listen to it.
My niece's birthday party was held at a friend of her mother's house. It is inside of a gated community nearby called Leisure Village (interesting, very time my dad hears this name he says, Sleazy Village, and I need to remember to ask him how it got that moniker). I find it confining from the moment you drive in and have to tell a gate attendant where you are going and who you are ... though they didn't ask me. You round the corners that all look exactly the same, perfectly manicured lawns and trees. All I can think is "STEPFORD." As my sister and I pulled out, I said something about it, and she said, it was a great place for someone like the host... retired, unmarried (widowed? divorced?). It was safe, my sister said. But, safe from what? I asked, not convinced that anyone needs that kind of safety.
I am continually intrigued by those that feel the need to live behind gates. I say this in the full knowledge that mental and emotional walls are gates... though often unseen. And I have spent my share of time behind those, so I guess my sister is right that I don't have a leg to stand on in my condemnation.
On a lighter note (but not really that light), I found a *new* (new to me) favorite song:
I always have to clarify ... I have a favorite monster from Sesame Street (Grover, of course).
But then when it comes to the muppets, the MUPPETS, then I have to decide between Kermie, who doesn't love Kermie? And Beeker...and Animal...and Gonzo.
I might have to say that Gonzo is my favorite ... I mean, the chickens can't be wrong about him, right?
It isn't actually fair to have to choose... there are muppets for every feeling: Fozzie (everyone needs a really bad joke every now and again), The Hecklers (I am sure they have real names, I never learned them), the Swedish Chef!
One thing is sure, The Rainbow Connection is the best song ever sung by a frog, or The Frog as he is referred to so often in the new movie.
So, who is your favorite? And don't act like my niece and say that you don't know the muppets because they are not of your era...
I tried to pick pictures that demonstrate movement.
I am struggling to see the movement... the forward motion in my life right now.
But it's complicated. Am I headed towards something? Like this mountain in the distance (Shasta, if you were wondering)... is there some point where I will arrive? Or should the looming mass just symbolize a mythical target to which one can direct attention? Is it motivating to imagine arriving there or climbing the mountain? Or does it just make me feel like it is an impossible dream?
Will I arrive at a fork in the road (or the stream) and have to choose? Will I know which direction leads me more directly to the ocean? Why can't I just climb over those dunes, I know what's on the other side? The dangers, adventures, deviations abound...it is unclear. Again, it is complex.
And all these paths are intricately connected -- in the choices and their histories and the futures they promise or threaten.
But, I need most of all to be in the present. To be present. There is nothing wrong with wanting progress, but if it means that I am not appreciating here and now for all of its own complications...
There are a million things to do before I get on the plane this afternoon ... so the post I had carefully planned to draft for today did not happen.
Instead, I opened an email that reminded me that mercury goes retrograde tomorrow.
So, I am taking deep breaths and hoping for a lovely, drama-free time with family ... or the wisdom to laugh and enjoy when it doesn't go that way.
With my aunt in the hospital and a friend's baby having surgery in the morning tomorrow, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of drama waiting to happen.
Wishing you all the best for a lovely Thanksgiving with all the bumps and bruises that come along with that.
This an incredibly loving way to show gratitude and honor our fallen:
"Jim Capoot was a United States Marine. He was a police officer. He was a coach. He was a loving and caring person. Above all, Jim Capoot was a beloved father, husband, son, uncle, brother and friend. He loved his family and they loved him. He loved the good people in the community that he protected and served, and the community clearly loved him. The outpouring of love and support from the entire community has been incredible and greatly appreciated."
The family added, "Please show your respect by saying 'thank you' to a police officer today."
I was just talking to a friend who lost her father last week... she is far away from her family and trying to make sense of a loss that is at the same time excruciating real and impossible to fathom. As she told me how she was reasoning through the pain and loss, I gained more and more respect for her compassionate heart.
And there I was reading about this blessing given to the world through this family's pain ... and I read this blog post. Andrea is one of my favorite people in the world. And I feel eternally blessed to have spent a few hours in her presence at a time in my life when I needed guidance, an ear, a shoulder and some constructive advice on where to go and how to proceed with life. If we could bottle a little of her perspective, honesty and vulnerability, I am sure we could share it with the world and make it a more compassionate place. I have been struggling with what to do with the "mean, nasty thoughts" that invade my space. Andrea's message about stealth blessings seems like just the right PRACTICE. These are issues that require practice and cannot be resolved with any antidote.
I was thinking about how little time I have had to write here ... and how easily I slip into the news round up ... and, frankly, feeling guilty about it. But, here I am, again, sharing articles. These are some that I cannot help but share ... some because they touch on the very vulnerability I seek to embody and understand, and some because they follow up on stories that I have posted here before.
This one, for instance, brings a bittersweet end to a judicial mess...the hell that our community (and the larger community) has been through with the first court case and the looming second one cannot be understated. I cannot say that I agree with the terms, but I can only hope that Brandon's lawyers did the best they could. May Larry now rest in peace... and may we all learn to do more about our adult responsibilities so that more children do not have to look for resolution in violence. May there be some healing ... and may Brandon not become the sociopath in prison that the prosecution would have liked the jury to believe he already was.
I feel I need to prepare for Thanksgiving this year with more than the anticipation to hug the mijos and be in the blessed madness of my family unit. Sighing deeply here ... praying for compassion on all sides and feeling grateful for all the blessings, stealth and overt, we all experience daily.
I made a pledge to myself to figure out how to hold on to my own idealism... falling down the stairs Monday morning threatened to weaken my resolve. Now I am going to be grateful for the bruises - together with the wince of pain, I am going to celebrate life...and hope and vulnerability.
[photo credits: me, small digital camera, trying to catch the storm from the summit of the Sandias, 2009]
I have been wildly estranged from my department all semester.
I am technically teaching anthro courses and enrolled in an independent study. And I am utterly focused on determining how to talk about my proposed research so that it sounds anthropological.
But, I find myself feeling on the outside: sometimes abandoned (by my tribe), other times escaped (from the asylum) and still others locked out (of the palace).
I approached the conference, then, alternately with ambivalence, excitement and fear.
I was most pleased to be "getting away" from Albuquerque which I associate with unending piles of books and articles to be read and papers to be drafted.
I never mustered the energy to plan for sessions or craft a strategy for meeting people.
And when I realized that a bulk of the people I'd been resisting seeing on campus would be here, fear gripped me...
As luck would have it, many of the sessions have relit the fire of my passion for my research and, perhaps, through this rekindling of affection, sparked the synapses and will engender creativity.
I keep thinking I should stop going to sessions and just lock myself up somewhere and write while I feel full of ideas and confident in their soundness.
Instead, I am off to more sessions, hoping the fires won't be dampened by the physical exhaustion or the occasional lackluster presentation or the intermittent discomfort caused by pretentiousness.
Il est sous le soleil une terre bénie,
Où le ciel a versé ses dons les plus brillants,
Où, répondant ses biens la nature agrandie
A ses vastes forêts mêle ses lacs géants.
Sur ces bords enchantés, notre mère, la France,
A laissé de sa gloire un immortel sillon,
Précipitant ses flots vers l'océan immense,
Le noble Saint-Laurent redit encor son nom.
Heureux qui la connaît, plus heureux qui l'habite,
Et, ne quittant jamais pour chercher d'autres cieux
Les rives du grand fleuve où le bonheur l'invite,
Sait vivre et sait mourir où dorment ses aïeux.
{While I am away, I am offering some things I have seen in the past few weeks but didn't get a chance to post before ... stories from Canada will follow my return.}
I drive by this building occasionally, it's called Neutral Corner. Whenever I see it, there is a little pang. I feel for the families that need a safe place to make custodial exchanges. Sometimes, I am feeling less charitable and wonder how it gets that bad. But, I guess I can imagine any number of scenarios that would require this level of intervention in order to keep all parties safe.
I have witnessed several tense discussions between split up co-parents... including using sb as the drop off point. But the other day, I saw something I hadn't seen before. The dad came in with the two kids. I guess I should have wondered when they didn't buy anything.
The dad held the son on his lap and the daughter was next to them, eating out of a bag of chips. I kept waiting for a mom to join them with hot drinks, but she never did. I tried to get the little boy to talk to me because he had his face painted. But big sister did all the talking. Dad laughed at the son not being willing to say anything, just nod or shake his head.
I went back to my work because that is why I was there, after all. And a little bit later, I noted that everyone (dad and two kids) was looking towards the door. The daughter looked at the door and then her father. No one came in the door, and I didn't see anyone outside of the door either. Then the packing up and hugging started.
The dad didn't seem to want to let go of his son, but he did. Then he hugged the girl and packed her up with backpack and lunch bag. Off they went, jauntily, through the door, seemingly just out into the darkness alone.
Then I saw a figure standing about three feet from the door, near the steps up to the entrance. Apparently that was as close as she was going to get. Soon the two kids were being hugged on the other end by the shadowy figure I saw through the window.
I let the scene register in my mind.
And then I heard sobbing. I tried not to look over. This must be the kind of excruciating pain they went through on both sides each time...
I would like to say that I am on my way to California to celebrate it with her ... however, several hurt feelings later, there is no celebration to attend.
I sent her carefully selected card.
I will take her a present when I go out for Thanksgiving ... but there will only be phone calls in between planes today.
It's a long story not worth mentioning why we didn't get to have a party. I will only clarify that my feelings were not hurt and I didn't do any feeling hurting either. I am just part of the collateral damage of the skirmish that resulted in the no party declaration.
Instead, I am going to celebrate my sis here ... with some of the pictures we were going to use for the party.
Happy Birthday, C. I hope you enjoy with your family.
My horoscope has been warning me against letting the money in my pocket burn a whole, and yet... I want these:
they're beautiful ... not ugg-like at all
and versatile... and I was completely convinced by J letting me borrow hers last winter in NY that they will keep my toes warm...
See them here, so you can check out all the angles, and see how ridiculously I am spending my hard earned cash. Thanks, B., for ordering them on your VIP status! :)
It doesn't help that my feet are cold... on the way to Gallup last week, I had the heater on, my thermals on, wool socks and my calves and feet were still super cold. When I got out of the car and had to walk, I swear they were too frozen to work properly.
Clearly, I exaggerate.
But it isn't even winter yet... and I have at least three to five more winters to go here.
When I have to pay for the car to get serviced, unavoidable, especially since I have to keep driving the long trek through next May ... that will be a whopper and with little to show for it, except some love for the cute little green car.
Props to my car, by the way, for being such a trooper... I am not sure if it likes going to Gallup once a week, but it drives like it enjoys the scenery and the wind in its non-existent hair. It shows its age only on the outside with the dents, dings and peeling wing thing on the back. Where it counts, the car drives like I just got it... not like it is about to be 10 years old!!
So, for Christmas, I guess I am buying these for myself, and wearing them to Montreal... need more warm socks, too...
Oh... and I have been coveting this, too, but I will need to win the lottery for real if I want that one:
This is why it is difficult to take the occupy movement seriously.... seriously, one day you are shouting down the tellers and the next week you are depositing dollars there instead of the credit union around the corner... um, yeah.
Dolly keeping it real; swiped from the LA Times.
RIP Bil Keane... Family Circus (along with Peanuts and Garfield) was one of my preferred comic strips as a child ... loved that family, felt like I was part of it ... even though they were super white. Billy, Dolly, Pj and Jeffy, they were my peeps ... [Yes, in case you were wondering, I was a newspaper addict at a very young age. My father got me my own LA Times subscription when I was in middle school. My mother thought it was extravagant. Little did they know that I was building towards a near obsession with reading the news ... who know the internet would come along and open me to news from SO MANY SOURCES?!]
I am not sure if Steve Jobs was really trying to protect our battery life or not, but I appreciate that the battery hog will not inhabit my mobile device... but I am sorry that Adobe is in financial straits... they have provided free and useful programs for a long time ...
You know that economic times are truly at a critical stage when the two Princetons finally decide to become one?? I almost missed this because I have not been keeping up with the Trenton Times, luckily for me The LA Times is on the case. Have I mentioned lately how much I love latimes.com???
In the spirit of everyone should be able to participate in whatever they deem appropriate, I offer this... it is not my cup of tea, but why should that hold her back?
RIP Harry Pachon... too many folks don't know what a mover and shaker this man was ... I didn't know he was Colombian ...
Everything about this story makes me want to cry. First of all, I don't think that these two words should ever have to be strung together "homeless mother" - and why does the story not tell us where her son is?!
The intensely personal writing is going into the journal right now... but I think some of the substance may see the light of day here, soon... just not sure when.
Said a sheet of snow-white paper, "Pure
was I created, and pure will I remain for
ever. I would rather be burnt and turn to
white ashes than suffer darkness to touch
me or the unclean to come near me."
The ink-bottle heard what the paper
was saying, and it laughed in its dark
heart; but it never dared to approach her.
And the multicoloured pencils heard her
also, and they too never came near her.
And the snow-white sheet of paper did
remain pure and chaste for ever -- pure and
chaste -- and empty.
Call me old-fashioned and stodgy and mainstream, I don't care. I believe in using the power structure that exists to make change. You cannot do that if you do not participate.
I am loving ELECTION DAY today and hailing the 99% (or 60% -- or whatever number actually got out) for exercising their voting muscle.
I had every intention of writing a real post for today ... but then the weekend boot camp kicked my ass... actually, it went very well, but the boot campers needed my full attention, so none of my work got done. Monday, then, turned into super work day and with that and laundry and worrying about driving to Gallup in the *snow* -- this post never happened.
I can report there was only a dusting of snow and it had stopped before I got there... it was only 32 degrees, but no precipitation on the road.
Here are some articles I have been enjoying when I should have been writing a post or something for class...
This should be included in some erudite posting about education -- because I think it will end up being useful for me to consider for my dissertation, but I throw it in here anyway. No time to be erudite today. Or at least right now, gotta get some energy for erudite for this evening.
I am feeling like I need to write a really long piece (perhaps not just for the blog) about college ... how much it costs, why students have so much debt, and how to cut through the bull on the issue. This is NPR's take on it, for what it's worth.
There are all kinds of bridges in our world, and just as many responses when you reach one.
Some cross bridges easily without a thought to its integrity. Others worry before they've even reached the bridge scared of the possibility as well as the danger.
Sometimes you have a long time to contemplate the experience, getting there and over it. Sometimes they come out of nowhere, seemingly, and you must decide in a flash whether to cross.
Once the crossing begins, do you look back? Do you light a match? Do you put your blinders up so that you cannot see what lies beyond? Do you grab the hand of the person at your side and squeeze as hard as you can?
I have been wondering if it is possible to rebuild a bridge from ashes. Or should I just press on to find the next bridge? Perhaps I should build with new material.
photo credits: me, not fancy camera, to prove there are all kinds of bridges; Oregon Coast, 2008
I didn't forget about the Thursday ritual of poetry that I tried to start a couple of weeks ago... just got caught up in some other stuff.
A friend gifted me a book of McKuen's poetry over ten years ago ... and I thought a man from Oakland might have something to say about the happenings right now. Also, it fits my mood.
I just read this story, and could not contain myself. Pluck and team work and community support. Even in an economically depressed city, people can find a way to support their kids. Brown kids playing CHESS... and kicking ass. I love it.
In that vein, I share with you Steve Lopez's latest thoughts on Occupy LA ... I find those camping out to be as unengaged in real change as those they oppose. I know, I am a hard ass and my age is showing. I don't care... I reiterate, these issues are too serious to be dabbling in advocating change through ?? because we have still not heard any solutions... just complaints. I can do that from the relative comfort of the space that I pay to occupy. Okay, moving on...
The boys in the barber shop were quite entertaining this week... but my favorite part was when Michele mirrored back to them ... "you guys are so NPR..." it is just right!
A little hometown pride (I love everything about this story, except the context that created it; but I do love the silver lining) ... and then some more (love that we might be part of the Cesar Chavez tour). Oxnard, oh how I did not appreciate you when I lived there...
Happy to see both that these ladies were honored as the homecoming royals and that they put into perspective the notion of "tradition". Say what you want about teenagers these days; they engage the world around them in ways we never did.
Finally, I need to put in this piece on sb's new initiative. I will be watching to see if this sparks neighborly feelings or even a movement ... to be part of the solution rather than just protesting.
I was in the local sb last Sunday when the staff had a meeting which included this campaign. Super interesting stuff... but now I need to go really write... somewhere there is no internet.
Que recuerdes tus seres queridos hoy ... especialmente los que ya no estan en este mundo con nosotros.
Feliz dia de los muertos...
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