Most of us are comfortable with our family members although we may not ever have chosen them as friends. There are psychological reasons for this, of course. ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know’, perhaps. We may not love each family member equally but somehow we learn to accept their idiosyncrasies, even when they cause us undue stress, inconvenience, or even pain.
Lots of times we stay embedded in the dysfunction of a family system although we hate it. We continue to play our expected role well into adulthood after choices are available.
We get comfortable. We maybe get too comfortable. Is it laziness? (I ask this question about a lot of things, it seems). My friend Dixie, who is one of the world’s wisest people, tells me that we become inured. She is, like most of us, apoplectic about the Gulf oil spill. She blames corporate complacency on the whole thing. The unwillingness to effect a change in this instance resulted in damage that will last for decades.
The complacency that results in failure to make improvements shown by BP reminds me a lot of what happens directly after coal mining disasters. You know, when the news reports ‘this mine has had 15 safety violations in the past 18 months’ and we all wonder WHY nothing was done to prevent tragedies that demolish mining families. The Department of Labor issued 175,000 safety violations and $141.2 million in fines on coal mines in 2009 with little effect on the number of fatalities that were a result of said violations. This kind of inured behavior really is a result of nothing more than corporate greed. The same corporate greed displayed by BP.
The point is you can put up with your tyrannical family member and suffer the painful consequences, you can fine oil or coal companies out the ying-yang, and all of those things seem to be acceptable rather than taking a step that may cost you something in order to prevent future suffering. We are inured. Or greedy. Or both.
And in my little brain, I see an extension of this unbendable part of human nature as becoming more and more of a threat to our existence. It comes to our own unwillingness to make a change, stand up to a threat, or face something that may be difficult or costly.
Locally, I see this in AZ SB1070. I have family members who favor it; I have family members who are against it. There are such complex layers to the problem of immigration, particularly in Arizona, that it boggles the mind. Sort of like having to drill down super-deep in the ocean for oil. It’s THAT complicated.
However, what has happened as a result of the ‘discussion’ around this bill and its resulting passage is quite simple. It has allowed the re-emergence of racism as an acceptable but unspoken element of our existence. To face this ugliness and call each other out on it would be painful, expensive, and difficult. But it is so necessary. Again, I fear we are inured. It’s easier to watch both sides holler at each other behind giant signs and American and Mexican flags than it is to step up and ask for civility.
And now we’ve had an election. I don’t even want to tiptoe into the potential racism replete in the referendum on the Obama presidency that we’ve just experienced. That is too much for my tired mind to contemplate well, and with the discipline it deserves.
There was an increase in voter turnout of 1.1% between this mid-term election and the previous mid-term election in 2006. With all of the bickering and badgering, the despicable advertisements and heated arguments that took place, I’m afraid that this turnout still shows a discouraging level of complacency.
I’m left to wonder how we will ever solve anything when the undercurrent is so ugly. Has it always been this way? In Arizona we’ve just re-elected a dolt as governor (this is nothing new to Arizonans, having lived through Evan Mecham and Fife Symington), who really embodies the just-below-the-surface type of racism I fear the most.
So what is my point? I’ve been thinking through societal structures from the family unit to the corporation. I’ve been looking at the laziness of Americans in general. I believe what I want to say the most is this: The comfort in which we dwell while we allow intolerance to bubble up will bite us all squarely in the ass and in a very ugly way indeed. Whew.
Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box. ~ Italian Proverb
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Dare to Dream
The middle of the year seems to bring out introspection and resolution-making a little more readily for me than New Year’s Day does. I think it’s the frightening realization that I’ve let yet another half of a year slip by, and if the other half of the year goes as fast as the first half did I’ll be left wondering what exactly it was I did with that year, and why I didn’t make more of it.
I’ve been talking with a lot of people about their dreams of late – not the ones that come to you in your sleep, although those can be really interesting too – but more about their ideas of the future for themselves. What did they want to be when they grew up? What did they imagine their lives would be like? How have their dreams morphed over time? What are they dreaming about now?
When I was about 12 someone gave me a large, hard-covered book filled with blank pages of quality paper. I wrote poetry in it, penned some short stories here and there, painted with water color on some of the pages. I drew with pen and ink on a lot of them (I went through a lengthy pen and ink phase thanks to my Drawing and Painting teacher in high school), and among these ink drawings were several pages with front, back, and inside views of my dream house, drawn in great detail.
I haven’t seen that book recently; it must be around somewhere in a box or in a closet, stuck among other fragments from my past. The thing is I can remember exactly what I wanted that house to look like. I’ve thought about it off and on over the years, and have always known that if I happened into a lot of money, that would be the house that I would build. And I would have to BUILD it, because, of course, it is unique enough not to be anything that one would find in a typical neighborhood. Back when I drew it, I wanted to build it in Chino Valley, AZ. Now I’m not so sure where it would go, but I’m fairly certain Chino Valley isn’t in the mix anymore.
I spent a lot of time at the ages of 12-14 or so, day dreaming, doodling, writing, and learning to do what I now recognize as planning. It was a zone in which I felt really peaceful and happy. The times in life when I’ve been the most productive and successful are those that have provided me with an opportunity to get into that zone to dream and create. When I was a teacher, planning was the best part of the job to me. I enjoyed linking subjects, ideas, curriculum requirements and activities together to build a lesson. The implementation was fulfilling, of course, and the students were always surprising and wonderful, but what gave me the most pleasure was the planning, where my imagination got to take over for awhile.
Sometimes in the implementation of a lesson plan one bumps up against realities for which even the best curriculum specialists were not prepared…but that just helps to refine the next lesson. And after talking to people about their dreams, I see that there are times when this is the case in the rest of life as well.
I once worked for a Department Chair at a university who had been a life-long political advocate, an Ombudsman, an extremely intelligent, tireless negotiator, a champion of the poor and downtrodden, steadfast enemy of big business and greed, a professor and esteemed researcher. He had spent most of his life in school, from kindergarten on up through his PhD, and remained there afterward doing research, writing, and teaching in the academic world until he was at the apex of his chosen field of study. He had virtually no experience with the lives of those for whom he was championing causes - until he had a heart attack. As a part of his recovery, he was required to attend rehab sessions and counseling with others in his relatively small college town who were also on the mend. One of the great shocks of his life was to rub shoulders with the ‘average Joe’; to learn who Joe was, what he believed, how he lived. The experience sent this learned man’s world view topsy-turvy. It didn't deter him from his dreams, but there was a lot more soul-searching and less saturated fat in his life after that.
One friend told me that he doesn’t feel that goals and dreams are the same thing at all. He always keeps his dreams a little bit ahead of his goals…a little loftier, a little less achievable. That’s the strategy that works best for him. I asked him once if he thought his life shaped his dreams, or his dreams shaped his life. He said that dreams have shaped his life. I think he is a lucky man. There are some people who have had the luxury of knowing precisely what their dreams were, aiming directly for them, and then watching life step aside and offer a wide, friendly berth as they reached them. But I think those people are rare. I don’t know too many, and I frankly haven’t asked any of them what it is they think they may have given up or missed by traversing their path so easily and steadily in life. I’m afraid that might sound like a bitter question.
IS that a bitter question? What I wonder is this: For most of us, do our dreams change simply out of laziness? Circumstance? Opportunity? I just don’t want to fall into the “if you can’t be with the one you love (honey) love the one you’re with” mentality…letting go of a dream simply because it isn’t easy or practical, or because it seems unattainable, then opting for something less daunting or less risky.
It seems to me that most of the rest of us are either a mixture of the purposeful and the dreamer, or just flat-out dreamers. The driven, purposeful, goal-setter in me is a sporadic part of my personality, visiting once or twice a year at best. As a result, there have been plenty of times in my life when I was buffeted around and pushed into places I didn’t expect to be. More often than not I’ve landed in a situation that has been interesting, that I might never have CHOSEN to be in, but one that taught me a lot, introduced me to a slice of society different from my own, and re-shaped me to the point of re-shaping my dreams.
This year my ‘resolution season’ seems to find me at a juncture where my purposeful self is competing with the dreamer in me. From past experience I know that the goal-setter version tends to prevail when she actually deigns to make an appearance. But I’ve got six more months until the next New Year’s Eve comes along, and plenty of time for twirling in the cosmic eddys that catch me up from time to time, so who knows what it is I’ll be dreaming about by December 31st?
I think I need a new pen and ink, and a nice, fresh tablet!
P.S. This article was sent to me by one of my more creative friends. It gives the scientific spin on all of the above...and then some. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29tier.html
I’ve been talking with a lot of people about their dreams of late – not the ones that come to you in your sleep, although those can be really interesting too – but more about their ideas of the future for themselves. What did they want to be when they grew up? What did they imagine their lives would be like? How have their dreams morphed over time? What are they dreaming about now?
When I was about 12 someone gave me a large, hard-covered book filled with blank pages of quality paper. I wrote poetry in it, penned some short stories here and there, painted with water color on some of the pages. I drew with pen and ink on a lot of them (I went through a lengthy pen and ink phase thanks to my Drawing and Painting teacher in high school), and among these ink drawings were several pages with front, back, and inside views of my dream house, drawn in great detail.
I haven’t seen that book recently; it must be around somewhere in a box or in a closet, stuck among other fragments from my past. The thing is I can remember exactly what I wanted that house to look like. I’ve thought about it off and on over the years, and have always known that if I happened into a lot of money, that would be the house that I would build. And I would have to BUILD it, because, of course, it is unique enough not to be anything that one would find in a typical neighborhood. Back when I drew it, I wanted to build it in Chino Valley, AZ. Now I’m not so sure where it would go, but I’m fairly certain Chino Valley isn’t in the mix anymore.
I spent a lot of time at the ages of 12-14 or so, day dreaming, doodling, writing, and learning to do what I now recognize as planning. It was a zone in which I felt really peaceful and happy. The times in life when I’ve been the most productive and successful are those that have provided me with an opportunity to get into that zone to dream and create. When I was a teacher, planning was the best part of the job to me. I enjoyed linking subjects, ideas, curriculum requirements and activities together to build a lesson. The implementation was fulfilling, of course, and the students were always surprising and wonderful, but what gave me the most pleasure was the planning, where my imagination got to take over for awhile.
Sometimes in the implementation of a lesson plan one bumps up against realities for which even the best curriculum specialists were not prepared…but that just helps to refine the next lesson. And after talking to people about their dreams, I see that there are times when this is the case in the rest of life as well.
I once worked for a Department Chair at a university who had been a life-long political advocate, an Ombudsman, an extremely intelligent, tireless negotiator, a champion of the poor and downtrodden, steadfast enemy of big business and greed, a professor and esteemed researcher. He had spent most of his life in school, from kindergarten on up through his PhD, and remained there afterward doing research, writing, and teaching in the academic world until he was at the apex of his chosen field of study. He had virtually no experience with the lives of those for whom he was championing causes - until he had a heart attack. As a part of his recovery, he was required to attend rehab sessions and counseling with others in his relatively small college town who were also on the mend. One of the great shocks of his life was to rub shoulders with the ‘average Joe’; to learn who Joe was, what he believed, how he lived. The experience sent this learned man’s world view topsy-turvy. It didn't deter him from his dreams, but there was a lot more soul-searching and less saturated fat in his life after that.
One friend told me that he doesn’t feel that goals and dreams are the same thing at all. He always keeps his dreams a little bit ahead of his goals…a little loftier, a little less achievable. That’s the strategy that works best for him. I asked him once if he thought his life shaped his dreams, or his dreams shaped his life. He said that dreams have shaped his life. I think he is a lucky man. There are some people who have had the luxury of knowing precisely what their dreams were, aiming directly for them, and then watching life step aside and offer a wide, friendly berth as they reached them. But I think those people are rare. I don’t know too many, and I frankly haven’t asked any of them what it is they think they may have given up or missed by traversing their path so easily and steadily in life. I’m afraid that might sound like a bitter question.
IS that a bitter question? What I wonder is this: For most of us, do our dreams change simply out of laziness? Circumstance? Opportunity? I just don’t want to fall into the “if you can’t be with the one you love (honey) love the one you’re with” mentality…letting go of a dream simply because it isn’t easy or practical, or because it seems unattainable, then opting for something less daunting or less risky.
It seems to me that most of the rest of us are either a mixture of the purposeful and the dreamer, or just flat-out dreamers. The driven, purposeful, goal-setter in me is a sporadic part of my personality, visiting once or twice a year at best. As a result, there have been plenty of times in my life when I was buffeted around and pushed into places I didn’t expect to be. More often than not I’ve landed in a situation that has been interesting, that I might never have CHOSEN to be in, but one that taught me a lot, introduced me to a slice of society different from my own, and re-shaped me to the point of re-shaping my dreams.
This year my ‘resolution season’ seems to find me at a juncture where my purposeful self is competing with the dreamer in me. From past experience I know that the goal-setter version tends to prevail when she actually deigns to make an appearance. But I’ve got six more months until the next New Year’s Eve comes along, and plenty of time for twirling in the cosmic eddys that catch me up from time to time, so who knows what it is I’ll be dreaming about by December 31st?
I think I need a new pen and ink, and a nice, fresh tablet!
P.S. This article was sent to me by one of my more creative friends. It gives the scientific spin on all of the above...and then some. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29tier.html
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Giving Birth
It seems appropriate to 'birth' this blog on Mother's Day, since ostensibly the ability to bring newness into the world is what we celebrate today. For myself, the imperative to write has been strong and has been nurtured all along, but hasn't been outed for the world to see...until today.
Mother's Day is such an odd holiday. Once you are a parent, you're a parent every day - actively or not. There is a mixed bag of emotions associated with this day that doesn't quite have the same range as those on Father's Day I think. Guilt, gratitude, duty, regret, sadness, love and empathy are among them.
On this particular 'celebration' of Mother's Day, I am thinking especially about several friends of mine who lost their moms in the past year. There are probably more of them than I am remembering here, but I can think of 8 people who are experiencing another day in that 'year of firsts' after someone passes. I know from my own life that such a year is fraught with grief, emptiness, smiling through tears at memories, and the understanding that this day will never be the same for you again.
I spent several years celebrating Mother's Day with a mother who had lost her grip on reality. She was sinking into Alzheimer's and my children and I knew it - but not everyone did. I don't think we kept quiet about it for any other reason than my mother's lifetime desire for privacy. Before she got sick, she was often shocked at the information I shared with my friends and vice-versa. She very seldom shared intimate details of her life with anyone outside my dad. I know some things, but there are still parts of her inner workings that are a mystery to me. I'm pretty sure that most of that has to do with her growing up in a very small town (Martinsville, IN 46151) and also with what was deemed proper conversation during her lifetime. I also know that if I hadn't been able to share things with my friends over the years I would have exploded, and little fragments of me would now be orbiting along with the atmospheric studies satellites that float over our heads every day.
The first Mother's Day that her illness was very apparent is now family legend. My kids and I had spent some time picking out small gifts for mom that we knew she would like, but that would be practical as well (this tends to be my nature - pragmatism rules!). She received our gifts very graciously, and then toddled off to bring me my gift from her. Now I must preface this by saying that over my lifetime my mother was EXTREMELY generous and amazingly thoughtful as a gift giver. She found me beautiful little antique jewelry pieces, books, and things that I continue to treasure. She gave me gifts on every occasion, (including St. Margaret's Day), and always had a little something for me on Mother's Day as well. So out she came with a gift bag, smiling like the cat who ate the canary, proudly placing this bag in front of me on the sofa. My kids were there, and we had a visitor (Jake Drake Bully Buster) at the house as well. I opened the bag to find...a multitude of old used orthotics for mom's shoes. Her feet hurt her all the time. I was - er - a little confused to say the least. BUT WAIT - that wasn't the gift after all. Under the orthotics (which she couldn't explain) there was something wrapped up in brown paper - done up the way they wrap your candles at the candle store. BUT WAIT - it wasn't a candle after all. It was a gigantic can of whole peaches. Yep. That's what it was. Now, I am a peach lover, but I can't ever recall a time when a can of peaches was the gift of choice as a holiday remembrance. This was one of our first sallies into dementia-land...and it was out there for all to see. I thanked her, hugged her, and tried to keep myself from bursting out laughing and lapsing into hysterical tears all at once. They were delicious, by the way.
Now cans of peaches are 'normal' gifts in our family. They are a coping strategy. They are a sweet memory of a mom trying to hang onto a holiday for the sake of her daughter. We laugh when we think about it - at least on the outside.
As time goes on you learn that your real family can be anyone. I know that Mary Dunten was my 'other mother' growing up, and Gloria Ligocki is my 'mom' now that I'm an orphan. A loving heart can nurture a child, (or a former child) at any time. So God Bless all the mamas (whether you delivered your children or not) on this and every other day of the year.
And just like my kids, maybe this little spot to write on will grow.
Mother's Day is such an odd holiday. Once you are a parent, you're a parent every day - actively or not. There is a mixed bag of emotions associated with this day that doesn't quite have the same range as those on Father's Day I think. Guilt, gratitude, duty, regret, sadness, love and empathy are among them.
On this particular 'celebration' of Mother's Day, I am thinking especially about several friends of mine who lost their moms in the past year. There are probably more of them than I am remembering here, but I can think of 8 people who are experiencing another day in that 'year of firsts' after someone passes. I know from my own life that such a year is fraught with grief, emptiness, smiling through tears at memories, and the understanding that this day will never be the same for you again.
I spent several years celebrating Mother's Day with a mother who had lost her grip on reality. She was sinking into Alzheimer's and my children and I knew it - but not everyone did. I don't think we kept quiet about it for any other reason than my mother's lifetime desire for privacy. Before she got sick, she was often shocked at the information I shared with my friends and vice-versa. She very seldom shared intimate details of her life with anyone outside my dad. I know some things, but there are still parts of her inner workings that are a mystery to me. I'm pretty sure that most of that has to do with her growing up in a very small town (Martinsville, IN 46151) and also with what was deemed proper conversation during her lifetime. I also know that if I hadn't been able to share things with my friends over the years I would have exploded, and little fragments of me would now be orbiting along with the atmospheric studies satellites that float over our heads every day.
The first Mother's Day that her illness was very apparent is now family legend. My kids and I had spent some time picking out small gifts for mom that we knew she would like, but that would be practical as well (this tends to be my nature - pragmatism rules!). She received our gifts very graciously, and then toddled off to bring me my gift from her. Now I must preface this by saying that over my lifetime my mother was EXTREMELY generous and amazingly thoughtful as a gift giver. She found me beautiful little antique jewelry pieces, books, and things that I continue to treasure. She gave me gifts on every occasion, (including St. Margaret's Day), and always had a little something for me on Mother's Day as well. So out she came with a gift bag, smiling like the cat who ate the canary, proudly placing this bag in front of me on the sofa. My kids were there, and we had a visitor (Jake Drake Bully Buster) at the house as well. I opened the bag to find...a multitude of old used orthotics for mom's shoes. Her feet hurt her all the time. I was - er - a little confused to say the least. BUT WAIT - that wasn't the gift after all. Under the orthotics (which she couldn't explain) there was something wrapped up in brown paper - done up the way they wrap your candles at the candle store. BUT WAIT - it wasn't a candle after all. It was a gigantic can of whole peaches. Yep. That's what it was. Now, I am a peach lover, but I can't ever recall a time when a can of peaches was the gift of choice as a holiday remembrance. This was one of our first sallies into dementia-land...and it was out there for all to see. I thanked her, hugged her, and tried to keep myself from bursting out laughing and lapsing into hysterical tears all at once. They were delicious, by the way.
Now cans of peaches are 'normal' gifts in our family. They are a coping strategy. They are a sweet memory of a mom trying to hang onto a holiday for the sake of her daughter. We laugh when we think about it - at least on the outside.
As time goes on you learn that your real family can be anyone. I know that Mary Dunten was my 'other mother' growing up, and Gloria Ligocki is my 'mom' now that I'm an orphan. A loving heart can nurture a child, (or a former child) at any time. So God Bless all the mamas (whether you delivered your children or not) on this and every other day of the year.
And just like my kids, maybe this little spot to write on will grow.
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