Category Archives: deep thoughts

some days…


Lake District by train, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

As I’m transitioning into the life of a university administrator (wow, that still feels so odd to say), I’m learning that there are some days that are just plain difficult.

Over the weekend we had a major and necessary change in our university’s courseware system. We’d run two thorough and successful tests of this change over the past two months and yet, today, we learned that some significant things had gone awry anyways. It fell on my shoulders to smooth the frustrations of staff, faculty and students, even as I was troubleshooting the system and searching for solutions. I tend to take these things personally. When people are frustrated with the software, I feel as though they are frustrated with me, or I feel as though my incompetence is revealed by the problem.

So today was hard. I spent a lot of time sighing deeply at my computer screen, wishing that I had a magic wand to make it all better.

And then I came home to my two eager (but ever so slightly teen-whiny) kids. And I was able to entice TobyJoy to eat a few small meals and take her pills (an ongoing battle in the Toby-saga). And we had a long and silly vidchat with John. And we had some tasty pizza slices from our old friend Ray. And we stopped by Trader Joe’s and saw our neighbor-manager Carolyn and picked up a few grocery staples to get us through this week.

When I checked my work email just now, I learned that the fix the IT team ran on the servers seems to have worked. My fingers are crossed that it is truly so, and that tomorrow will be an easier day for all of our users. In the meantime, I’m trying to relax a bit and pull things into perspective again.

pre-trip panic


IMG_1794, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about–those moments where you’re gathering all the loose ends and wondering if you’re really going to be able to pull it off…I typically hit this place just before a trip where the small frustrations of packing and itinerary-making cause me to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just stay home?

There are so many unknowns with travel, so many connections to make (or not make). And I’m afraid. So much could go wrong!

Here are the three of us in Rheims, France.  We’re behind the Basilica de St Remy, just after the Jean d’Arc parade in 2004. Isn’t the lavender gorgeous?

perspective

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the impact of “perspective” on the way we view our lives. For example, if viewed through a particular point of view, my life would look like this:

-i had cancer and lost my leg. i’ll never run again, and walking is often painful. people stare and say rude things to me, especially if i’m not wearing my prosthesis. the simplest of things can be hard. i fall sometimes, which is embarrassing. it’s not easy to get health insurance. it’s also quite difficult to be employed with a visible disability. everything is harder for me than for most people. the chance of me getting cancer again is high, due to the types of treatment that i had. i feel unattractive because my body is scarred and assymetrical.

Or through a different lens, I could view it this way:

-Having cancer and losing my leg hasn’t held me back in any significant way. I’m still healthy because I can exercise and eat well. I have medical insurance that allows me to buy hi-tech prosthetics to increase my safety and agility. Having a disability helps me to meet more people than I would otherwise, and has enriched my life as a result of a wider-ranging social circle and new opportunities. There’s rarely anything I can’t do if I put my mind to it and try hard. I have a good parking space nearly everywhere I go & strangers tend to help me if/when anything goes awry with my leg.

My days tend to be a mix of both ways of viewing my life. Sometimes I get stuck in feeling sorry for myself, and other times I feel as though I could conquer the world. I think I tend to the latter perspective–life feels very fragile and brief, so I don’t want to fritter it away feeling bad about the ways things have turned out for me.

send-off


Park pose, 1990, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.
Just finished handwriting my first letter to John in Seattle (where he’s studying SF writing this summer). But before I wrote to him, I read through many of the weekly letters that I sent him while he was in Japan on his LDS mission. He left for two years just shortly after we met. Those 20 year-old letters are so embarrassingly sappy to me now, and have moments of discomfort that make me cringe. How do you negotiate sensitive topics while halfway around the globe from each other, with a lag of weeks between correspondence (we weren’t allowed to talk on the phone, nor could we have afforded it)? There was so much unsaid, so much reading between the lines…so much wondering who we would find when we reunited…

And even though we have many ways of keeping in touch now–it’s still gonna be one long summer apart from my love 🙁

Picture above was taken the Sunday before John left for Japan, following his missionary “farewell” meeting at church. We were so silly & dramatic back then!

As busy as a…bunny?

I’m working on gathering the statistical information for the maps that I’m making this week, and I just encountered the image above in a scanned googlebook from the 1870s. It actually gave me the creeps–like those goosebumps that I get on the back of my neck when there’s an odd breeze blowing through an empty room. And it sort of reminds me of the creepy nineteenth-century spiritualist images, too…

PS: The bunny reference has to do with the overabundance of the creatures on this campus.  Being very careful of the ones with fangs, I promise!

Something old, something new…

There are parts of my life in which I’m extremely old-fashioned, and others that I’m completely hi-tech.  For example, I’d choose a turn-of-the-last-century house, a vinyl album, and vintage clothing over the same items new.  But I’m an early adopter of most social technologies–first using BBSs, email, geocities, and listservs back in the early 90s, blogging for nearly a decade, and now an avid twitterer.  
I don’t see much of a pattern in my proclivities.  But it does seem that I prefer old *things* and I prefer new *methods.*  So my car is 13 years-old and my laptop is seven and my SIGG bottle wears its battle scars proudly.  But I usually know whatever the “new big thing” is on the web, follow twitter trending topics avidly, and enjoy discussing the latest tech news.  
The old and new are on my mind today because I’ve gotten several comments lately about the fact that this blog still lives on blogger (an artifact from the day when blogspot.com was the latest shiny tool).  I’ve actually re-built this site several times on wordpress, and yet each time I’ve started the process of migrating the content, I’ve changed my mind.  It’s likely that I’ll actually move forward with it soon, as part of my online portfolio project–but it’s hard to move on from a space that’s been ‘home’ for so long.  It feels like that comfortable pair of jeans that just keeps emerging from my closet even though it’s well past time for them to become quilting materials.
Picture above shows the bunnies congregating at the University of Victoria

transitions


under the rose arbor, in the sunshine, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.
This past few months have been full of unknowns for me and my family. For example, we learned that there was a strong chance that our apartment would be demolished this summer, but were given no certainty or specific timetable for that event. A few months ago I’d also received word that a job offer was imminent from Chapman University, but then time marched on with nothing concrete happening on that front. And so forth…

Well, many of those unknowns have recently become decided. Our apartment will not be demolished but my beloved community garden (also on university property) will. I received my formal job offer this Friday. I also learned that I received funding to travel to an international conference in England later this summer, and the issues with my health insurance company were recently resolved in my favor. And I received word that I earned only one fellowship to support my studies this next year (at the Huntington Library–lucky me!).

Whew, there’s something so very comforting about having fewer unknowns looming on the horizon. I like to think of myself as someone who sees the world in a rather rosy light, but there are times when things seem so uncertain that it’s difficult to not let that overwhelm me…and eclipse my daily joys.

Last night I sat in the garden with two dear friends and started remembering all of the stories that are held in that soil. There are memories from when my kids were small and we saw fairies in the dew that gathered at the joints of the cornstalk leaves. There are times with sunflower houses, bean teepees, spontaneous potlucks, and BLACKBERRIES. There are bumblebees and gophers and rats and those damn peach-thieving squirrels. There are plants that just keep growing, and some that don’t make it after all. There’s mud and sweat and tears. There’s silence and birdsong. There’s the smell of lavender at dusk. And there is knowing that no matter where I go, I will always have a garden.

On Turning 39…

This post is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish. 

Turning 39 feels awfully old.  And I know most people, especially women, feel wearied by this number–with 40 looming just around the corner.

But here’s the thing: For a few years I doubted whether I would even make it to see my 15th birthday.  That I’m still kickin’ at 39 is nothing short of a miracle to me.

Picture at left is of me during chemo.  I’m wearing a wig and a favorite purple sweatshirt that a friend personalized for me.