Last night John walked into our bedroom and found me with the bedcovers covering part of my face. It wasn’t until he said something that I realized my hands were pressing the layers of quilt and sheets over my mouth, in an act of self-comfort.
I think I’d told John before that when I was younger I slept with the covers over my head. Especially on nights that I was scared. Because the warm cocoon of blanket seemed so much safer than whatever loomed in the dark night.
I’m horribly afraid of heights. So much so that when I find myself in a high place, I’m tempted to just jump because I want the fear to end. Completely irrational, but that’s how it feels.
So given my fear, rock climbing is just crazy. But I kind of love it anyways. When I’m up on that wall and my heart is pounding so hard from fear, and every muscle is straining…it gives quite an adrenaline rush.
But I never look down and I never look too far ahead. I stay focused on the place where I am and the next step. I look for the nearby holds rather than looking back or down.
Though as a historian I tend to have an obsession with the past, in my own life I’m learning the importance of being present in the here and now. Rock climbing is a good reminder of that important lesson. When I concentrate on the very place where I am, the fear of what’s below or ahead just drops away.
Note: Catgirl is on one face of the wall and I’m on the other. 🙂
I’m posting this picture simply because I wanted to post something today that just makes me happy. And seeing this picture of Catgirl feeding the birds at Notre Dame cathedral, it’s pure happy. 🙂
A friend mentioned, in an email, conversation to me recently that she’s a ‘workaholic.’ I hadn’t heard that word in a long time, and it caused me to think for a bit. I suppose I’ve rarely heard that term applied to women–usually it’s a term used to denote a man who spends more time at the office than at work. But I began to wonder if maybe I’m a bit of a workaholic. Or, maybe, all of us in academia suffer a bit from the workaholism simply because our work is never done. It never gets left at the office. There are always journals to read, and articles to write, and studies to conduct, and conferences to attend. And all of that on top of our teaching and administrative activities.
I think about work nearly all of the time. I can sometimes turn it off if I’m paddling or with my family, but even then I tend to yammer on to my teammates or to John about “something that happened at work today.”
Surely some of this is the novelty of my new position at Chapman. I have had to learn SO MUCH in the past few months and my brain is constantly spinning on the various tasks associated with my job. And then there’s my dissertation, which is congealing much more these days, and as it does so it’s just hard to step away from–my subjects are living right alongside me all the time.
And I’m certainly happy with my job. So far it’s offered a healthy mix of deadlines and projects. That there is no space for complacency is actually a good thing for my personality. I like challenges.
But every once in awhile I remember that my current lifestyle is definitely…odd. That I don’t just hang out with friends anymore…makes me a bit wistful for the days that we had friends over for games nearly every weekend. That I’ve only read one poem in as long as I can remember seems….so unlike me and there is this part of me that craves words as juicy as oranges.. That I haven’t planted anything new in my garden since May….makes me wonder if some part of me is dying on the vine.
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just a temporary thing. And next year when that dissertation is filed and my job becomes more routine, then there will be time for poetry and friends and flowers once again.
At Chapman I spend a lot of time coaching faculty on how they can use technology in the classroom. This past week–the first week of the semester–numerous times faculty have told me “I just don’t want to learn one more piece of software.” This usually happens after I’ve gushed about some type of tool that would help them solve a problem.
I gush far too much.
What the faculty need is not someone like me who loves to experiment with new software, who thinks a great weekend is one that involves a fresh install of WordPress, or who dreams about digital tools (yes, I’m embarrassed to admit that many of my dreams have involved magical plugins). They need someone who thinks they way they do.
Our neighbor took this gorgeous picture of our daughters at the beach. I’m posting it today because my hands are exhausted from a full day of typing and my head is overwhelmed at the way my “little ones” are growing up so quickly.
At Chapman all of the freshmen are arriving this week for Orientation. They are wandering all around the campus with their parents in tow. It won’t be so very long before that is me, launching my kids into the next phase of their lives…
About ten years ago began to think deeply about the ways I was gender-typing my children. Though I’ve always been a fairly open-minded parent, I could see that my gentle teasing to my son about his interactions with the cute girls in his class, or my suggestion to my daughter that she style her hair a particular way were based on the gender stereotypes that I didn’t necessarily agree with ideologically. And while I saw that my academic language was evolving to me more gender-neutral, sometimes I had to work hard to be more inclusive with gender-based ideas in my parenting and other daily interactions. This wasn’t because I held gendered expectations about my children per se, it was more due to the pervasive way in which it was unknowingly embedded my behavior and speech.
When I recently went through the SafeSpace training for Chapman University, we participated in an exercise that caused us to reflect on the many ways our society creates and reinforces sex-based binaries. Since then I’ve made note of each time I’ve been forced to declare my gender and wondered how awkward it might feel if my gender assignment at birth and my gender expression were different. I’ve marveled at how frequently those Male/Female questions are asked on forms for travel, medical care, employee benefits, and financial records. When possible, I’ve stopped declaring my sex, but I rarely see this as an allowed option (and I hate that word “other” on sex-based questions–how dehumanizing that seems).
Because I think so much of the way we experience gendered expectations on a daily basis is subtle–so subtle we don’t even notice it–I am going to try an experiment in a few weeks and hope you’ll join in. On September 1st, I’m going to tweet every moment in my day that I experience a gendered interaction. Whether it’s the choice of a restroom to use, an interaction where I’m callled “ma’am,” a time when I’m forced to make a choice on a form that asks for F or M, or any other moment where I feel that gender plays a role in my day. If you’re willing, I’d like for you to join me in this exercise, and also participate in reflecting on the experience either here in the comments of this post or on your own blog. For easy searching I’ll be marking my tweets with the hashtag #genderd (shorthand for “Gender Day”), and will collect all the tweets into a twapperkeeper for archival purposes.
For me, however, what I first noticed about this image, was how his chest is open to receive the world. When I do yoga, many of my favorite poses involve opening my chest in this same way. It’s an exposed feeling to lead with one’s heart like this. It’s vulnerable. But given that so much of what we do in our lives involves holding things close, shoulders hunched over and arms grasping, it feels good to open up and let go. To let the world take us where it will.
One of my favorite things is to float on the ocean in this posture–arms outstretched and heart filling up with the sun.
Many of you might remember my blogpost from two years ago, “What Has to Be Done.” That post, and the talk I gave alongside famous blogger Heather Armstrong (of dooce.com) brought over 30,000 new readers to my blog. What a hard time that was. As I suffered through the pain of my surgery and the side-effects of the intensive antibiotic therapy, I wondered whether my plans to finish my PhD were evaporating. I questioned whether my mobility might be forever impacted by the surgery and the persistence of the infection. I marveled at the support of my family and my community even as I worried about John’s ability to hold together our lives while my health was so fragile.
About a year ago, I faced another moment of “what had to be done” when local LDS leaders chose to summon my spouse to an ecclesiastical court. I attended that event to testify on his behalf, and also to observe the events closely. It was a time when my own relationship with the church was tenuous, and seeing how this event proceeded was a significant step in my realization that I could no longer be an active adherent of the Mormon faith. Lately many of those feelings have been bubbling up again–I drive past the temple and the local LDS meetinghouse almost daily, which serves as a constant reminder of the church’s impact on my life. Even now I remain cosmically disappointed in the Mormon church and its leaders (on all levels–local, regional, and global), despite supporting my friends who are members. I feel a rather irrational amount of anger at the group of men who conducted John’s church court proceedings, especially because they were people in whom I’d once placed a great deal of trust. Distancing myself from the church wasn’t because I was “offended” by these leaders, it was that I could no longer put my faith in an institution where leaders could wield so much power (such as the power to sever my sealing to my spouse) so irresponsibly. Choosing to walk away from my LDS community was hugely difficult for me, given all that I had invested in the church through the years.
On July 25th this year (in sharp contrast to July 25th two years ago when I was being re-admitted to the hospital for my leg infection), I was in Fairfax, Virginia meeting with a group of twelve digital humanists to embark on a radical tool-building experiment. My colleague Effie, described our process on her blog today as “doing what needs to be done” (see the last paragraph). I loved that she said that, because I hadn’t thought of our fast-paced development process in that way until now. That phrase helped me to see the connective threads in my life from a point two years ago when I was purely in ‘survival’ mode, to the point that I’m at now with an abundance of opportunities ahead. I feel as though the lessons I’ve learned since then continue to serve me in my scholarly and creative work, as well as in my spiritual life. For now, “what needs to be done” is to focus on my dissertation while juggling an exciting array of side projects and the needs of my family (as well as squeezing in plenty of time out paddling on the ocean and time for quiet contemplation–sometimes simultaneously). I feel so fortunate to have the health and confidence to move forward with my dreams. These past two years have taught me much.
Last night my plane sat on the tarmac for more than 30 minutes before getting gate clearance. And we ended up being unloaded rather far off to one end of the airport so I came in a side door on a far gate rather than the regular JetBlue terminal. This meant that I exited the airport and walked down to where John awaited me at baggage claim. Seeing him from afar, I almost didn’t recognize him! Those six weeks of unruly uncut curls! But what was truly awesome was that he was positioned at the gate, watching the door, with his back to where I was. So I came up behind him and watched his body shift (almost in slow motion, like a movie) as I whispered. Love, I’m here. And then he took me in his arms and I buried my head in that strong shoulder of his and let the tears fall.
The past week has, of course, been one of the most exciting times of my professional life. Working with the brilliant and affable people of the One Week | One Tool team exceeded my expectations in every which way. I especially loved that it was a diversion from the challenges of the weeks that had preceded it. Even though we were working super-hard on our project, it was actually far less stressful than the weeks that had preceded it…
I’d had a perfect storm of DH experiences over the summer–such amazingly rich conferences. But I’d also been solo-parenting the kids while John was at Clarion (managing all of the end-of-school-year busy-ness along with their personal and outrigger team schedules), had just started a full-time job where in the space of four weeks I rolled out two major web projects and oversaw a large-scale courseware migration project, was in training for the time trials for the adaptive team for the Outrigger World Champs, and was managing the health needs of a critically-ill cat. And throw into the mix the care of a 450 sq ft summer garden, various household projects, a car that broke down, a dissertation-in-progress, a broken prosthetic leg (temporarily fixed so I could travel), 3 major trips (including two across international borders), etc. And I think….it was just about too much.
I feel now, a bit shell-shocked at all that has happened the past few weeks. I’m terribly behind on emails and thank yous and stuff. I have a mountain of laundry. I have plenty of stuff to do to prepare for Tuesday’s OneWeek software launch. I’m also finding that I just can’t seem to turn off my brain. I keep yammering on about work to John and can hardly enjoy the pleasures of home. I’m not trying to complain–really the magic of all I’ve learned and done leaves me with no regrets. But I am…exhausted and raw. I need some time, some ocean, my lover’s arms, and some good deep sleep…
I needed an extra bag to bring home some trinkets: a wooden dragon for GameBoy, turquoise silk pajamas for Catgirl, a black cheongsam for me, as well as several pouches of jasmine tea. For John I brought a delicately carved “chop” engraved with his name in Chinese.
Now I carry my ESPBIT bag to my outrigger races, to conferences, and just about anywhere else I travel. It’s outlasted nearly every other suitcase that I’ve purchased.