retrospective

Looking back through the posts mom and I have made in this space during 2011, I see a shift in my focus over the twelve months. As the year began, I was in a very strong and powerful place. I had made some decisions about my life and was enjoying exploring those choices. I would hazard to say our first koan, about ethical awareness and consciousness, came more out of where I was at the time than where mom was.

Sunset - Land's End - January 1, 2012

We covered a lot of ground quickly and briefly moving from topic to topic. And while mom's post tended to be about what she was experiencing and feeling, my posts tended towards what I was thinking about and seeing. Getting up on my soapbox about a few things was both fun and slightly embarrassing (though well received). By mid-spring, I felt like the blog had settled into a pace and flow.

Sunset - Land's End - January 1, 2012

Then, there was a silence, which was very much related to life things happening and not anything between mom and me. But I can see someone reading something into it. At the same time, I know that as I look and think back over that time, there was something shifting for me during that time. I started to go to a much more internal, vulnerable place. Asking myself more personal questions. Not focusing on the world at large as much. And in many ways, less willing to share that journey in a public place.

Sunset - Land's End - January 1, 2012

After the silence, there was a flood. For me, July stands out almost as a separate blog. 60 posts. Reading through them is beautiful and bewildering. It is so different from the other content. No agenda. No purpose. No koan. Just simple daily observations and pictures.

Afterwards, it was hard to move back to content driven posts. Which is interesting retrospectively, because the goal of posting everyday for the month was to get us back in the habit of writing on the blog. I wonder if we almost burnt ourselves out that month; I definitely found the commitment of posting everyday sometimes to be daunting. Or perhaps it was the fact that after July was over, we did have a new koan or direction to move into. And one cannot forget that the fall signaled the start of the school year for both mom and myself.

Sunset - Land's End - January 1, 2012

While I'm not upset about how the blog dwindled in the last few months of the year, I wish that it had turned out differently. I don't that it could have knowing the state that I was in from September through December, but that doesn't stop me from struggling with my unfulfilled expectations. In the end, I do feel like I was able to connect more with my mom, which was what this whole project was about anyway.

Unbalanced

September usually marks a time in my life when I lose any semblance of balance between my work life and my non-work life. The start of the youth & teen program fall session at the dance organization where I work means that I work the first two weeks of the session straight.  This year was no different. I worked the Tuesday after Labor Day, the 5th through the 17th. Twelve days of working. Most of the time I was putting in 8 hour days, if not longer.

The over-achieving, workaholic is a standard image in our contemporary, western culture. Definitely within the corporate culture. I think it's just as bad in non-profit culture where I work. There is this idea that we have to sacrifice our lives for the good work we're doing. When there is a gap to be filled in, we jump in and roll up our sleeves. There's a constant idea of there being no money and no resources. You're supported by your ideals and the knowledge that what you're doing is important.

I have always had a strangely strong work ethic. I have been noted of going above and beyond in all of my jobs - student (6-22), receptionist (15), sales clerk (16), restaurant hostess (17-20), library circulation desk attendant (18-22), au pair (22), Americorps volunteer (23-24), non-profit arts administrator (24-29). I'm not saying I haven't slacked off or wasted time while on the clock. I read a romance novel at the library one semester that a professor had put on the holds shelf for a class during the downtime of my shifts. Note that I wasn't in the class. But, overall, I've always focused on being present and engaged in the workplace, which has served me in finding better and better jobs and employment.

So, when does this become a problem? When does being a good employee go beyond what's healthy? How do you say no when you know there is no one else there, and no money to hire someone to be there, to do the job? How do you stop being good at your job for the sake of being good to yourself?

Routines

Water pipes in the hallway

Funny how small breaks in routine can be so draining. I, apparently, really need that one day a week when I can sleep-in. I have a feeling this is going to end up being a very long week.

It's the pits

Continuing with our current koan, I would like to discuss some struggles I've had with beauty practices currently expected of women in our society. Basically what I would like to tackle in this post is hair. Yes, we all have body hair. Some more than others but, once we hit puberty, we've all got it. And most women spend a whole hell of a lot of time getting rid of it.

Armpit hair study #1 - pop art

Personally, I have never really connected to the reasons behind shaving, waxing, plucking, etc. I know that it is considered attractive and appropriate for a woman in our society to have as little noticeable body hair as possible. I know that the same level of hair removal is not expected of men, though some level of grooming is expected.

Armpit hair study #2 - sepia

For me, removing my body hair was always something that I did to fit in. With the sole exception of occasionally shaving my legs, I never did it because it made my body feel better. Here's what I remember of my indoctrination into our culture of hair removal:

• My younger sister asking me if I had thought about shaving my legs. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my body beyond what was on my head. I was 13 years old.
• My mother teaching me to shave my legs with a beige, electric razor from the 70's that pulled out more hairs that it ever shaved.
• My sister ordering this green goo from Australia that was supposed to remove hair in some manner that was better and easier than shaving or waxing. I had no interest in said green goo, but was talked into being a guinea pig. Let's just say ... never again.
• Sitting on the bus, my freshman year of high school, listening to my two best friends tell me that they had talked to a guy friend of ours who said I would be really pretty if only I plucked my eyebrows. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my face having any impact on my respective attractiveness.
• A few weeks later in a hotel room before my grandmother's memorial service, I asked my mother to pluck my eyebrows for the first time.
• At a pool party in high school, having painful awareness of red bumps on my bikini line from where I had shaved "down there" for the first time. No sunbathing for me.

Armpit hair study #3 - colored pencil

Retrospectively, what makes me uncomfortable about the above experiences is that they reinforced for me the idea that I had to shave, pluck, etc. in order to look clean, good, right, or attractive. It's taken a long time, and being in a supportive relationship, for me to be able to start to deal with my internal conflict over my hair removal practices.

Armpit hair study #4 - thermal camera

I gave up on my bikini line years ago and buy swim wear accordingly. It's been over a year since I've plucked my eyebrows though I still have a habit of pulling them out when I'm stressed or nervous. I haven't shaved my pits since the fall and am getting used to seeing hair there when I wear tank tops. My legs are currently nice and fuzzy. I can see myself shaving them when the weather is warmer, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

No one said it would be easy

Highly edited photo of a sticker at the bottom of a street lamp near our apartment in SF.

Around the age of 13 or 14, even though my strongest subjects in school had always been math and science, I latched on to the idea that I wanted to be a novelist. A writer. I loved imagining that someday the dog-eared book on someone's nightstand would have my name on the cover.

Now even though I wanted to be a writer, I didn't really spend a lot of time writing. I wasn't bad at writing, but I didn't do it unless there was a reason - an assignment, report, paper, etc. On the other hand, I loved to read. Summers were spent waking up to pull the novel from my bedside and reading it until I could barely walk downstairs because I was fainting with hunger. Libraries weren't safe from my methodical hand (still aren't) as I would check out as many books as they would allow at a time.

Still, the idea of writing books was so strong in my imagination that I purposefully went to a university with a Creative Writing program. Ever the over-achiever, once I was at college, I found myself adding a second major - Music - and soon falling in love with Dance, which would become my minor on top of my two majors.  As a side note, they don't let students at my university have two majors and a minor any more and I totally understand why. Yet somehow, amidst all of the rehearsals, classes, performances, my campus job, studying abroad, etc, I managed to get myself in the position of writing a thesis for my Creative Writing major during my senior year.

Now a thesis for a Creative Writing major sounds great, right? No research. No documenting sources. No experiments or data. Just doing what I had dreamed about doing - writing. My thesis was to be a novela that told the story of young girl from an Arthurian story I had read in one of my literature courses. She was a minor character in the story who did an amazing thing that was glossed over to get to the more important parts about, you know, the men. So, I was going to give her a voice and story. Sadly, she ended up stealing mine.

Early on in the process, I started to panic a little bit.  Over three years, I had never created a habit of writing so actually making the time to do it was very difficult. And when I did make the time, I couldn't think of anything to write. After a few months of struggling, I had pretty much psyched myself out. My story revolved around my character doing nothing over and over again. I couldn't articulate my problems to my advisor, so I just kept trudging along, alone and afraid of when everyone would find out that my work wasn't really going anywhere.

Needless to say about three weeks before my thesis was due, the lack of anything substantial in my writing came to light. And the stress and negative feedback from my advisor over the following weeks was enough to make it completely impossible for me to write for the next two years. Slowly over time and with help of amazing mentors in the dance community, I was able to begin writing again. It's been seven years this May since I graduated from college and I still struggle with writing today.

But each little step - carrying a notebook around to jot ideas in, writing a grant for the organization I worked for, starting a blog with my mom - is helping me get over the trauma of that experience and to continue struggling towards my dream of my own dog-eared book.

Telling Our Stories

Butterfy tagged and ready to be released at Tremont in the Smoky Mts.

This venture into writing is intimidating to me. My story is my story and comes from my unique perspective. Or does it? I begin reflecting on my own privilege and good fortune as compared to the statistics and the numbers are staggering. The fact that I am well fed, can read, write, use a computer and live in safety puts me in a category of small numbers compared to the world at large. I am grateful for the goodness in my life. If I have gained any wisdom over the years, it is to count my blessings. So I have incorporated being thankful as a daily practice. I can only imagine what true struggle for survival must be like. I am indeed fortunate and though I tend to take my life for granted on a day to day basis,  I like to think I am aware of the bigger picture. For me it comes down to the question, "What kind of difference does one individual make? There are many examples of individuals I can think of that have made a difference in my life and the lives of others through their impact on society. Here are just a few.

• Maya Angelou
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Thomas Jefferson
• the Dali Lama
• Maria Montessori
• Dorothy Menard
• Eric Butterworth
• Willard and Evelyn Jones 

But for most of my life I have felt that I did not make a difference in any area of my life. The choices I have made and the people I have encountered have influenced me, but I have always had a hard time believing I impacted others in any meaningful way.

I have come to understand part of this tendency is because of my personality type. Intellectually, my understanding is, that the impact is there because I believe everyone is interconnected. We are born needing connection. In my many interactions with others they have expressed both positive and negative feelings about what I have said or done. As a teacher, I impacted the lives of my students and as a mother, well, I hope I have had a positive impact overall, but there have been times in my parenting (and teaching) I have been ashamed of my actions or words (or both)and forgiveness is a blessing. I've been reading Brene Brown's book I Thought it was Just Me, and in her introduction she writes about the basis for her research and studies about shame.

We are wired for connection. It's in our biology. As infants, our need for connection is about survival. As we grow older, connection means thriving-emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually. Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to believe that we belong and we are valued for who we are. Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection- the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories.

Here is a link to Brene's blog Ordinary Courage. Near the end of her entry she talks about the value of struggle and how important it is to give our children the gift of seeing us struggle. She says, " Watching us struggle gives them permission to struggle. Talking openly about the difficulty of forgiveness is an invitation to them to talk openly to us." So I guess my story isn't just my story after all. To live authentically and with wholeness is to value the connections in our lives. Our stories have meaning and so I am a little less intimidated in sharing my stories, given that I belong to a family, a community, a country and a world where my showing up each day matters.