Tuesday, July 14, 2009
We do not receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. - Marcel Proust
Monday, July 13, 2009
Love After Love (Derek Walcott)The time will come
When, with elation
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror
And each will smile at the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate
Notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
With thanks to White Hot Truth - I've read this poem before but haven't seen it in a long time.
I love it.
I read Judith Warner's column last week with a heavy heart. Of course I do not understand the nuances of the situation so I can't comment on the specific instance she cites. But the trend, the overall observation she makes, had me nodding my head in sad recognition.
Then one of my favorite new blogs, Ivy League Insecurities, took up the topic with a thought-provoking response.
I found myself mulling this over all weekend as I hiked, and handed children hand-over-hand down a rock ravine, and lay in a camp bunk trying to sleep as 11 people stirred around me.
My initial reaction is that the growing resentment among the many for the "privileged few," especially women, is just another form of judgment by superficial labels. How is extrapolating from people's external situations to draw assumptions about their personalities, values, and problems any different whether the person being stereotyped and judged is privileged or not? Isn't it the same kind of superficial judgment in either direction?
And then I thought more. I have certainly been made to feel, many times, that my own concerns and fears are somehow less legitimate, less raw and real, because most of my life appears pretty well under control. And, when I am truly honest, sometimes I believe that too. Sometimes - actually, often - I chastise myself, saying: Come on. Pull yourself together. What do you want for? What do you need? You have so much. Why are you sad? And part of me believes this message, but part of me adamantly does not.
On the one hand, of course concerns of feeding your children or pressing fatal illness are much more significant than the things that rattle around my head. In fact, when I push this further, the kinds of issues that occupy me could be thought of as the province of the privileged; is it not an indulgence, a gift, even, to be able to worry about such small things? But then I know how keenly I feel things. I know that these worries are very real, often all-consuming.
So I guess the conclusion I come to is that it is not for any of us to judge the lives of others. It is not for us to make assessments of how valid are other people's points of view, intentions, or loves. It is impossible to know, from how someone looks on the surface, what is going on inside his or her heart. I have learned enough in my life to know that with absolute certainty.
Both posts are, in fact, about something beyond just this notion of outsides and insides. The claim that educated women are being told, implicitly and explicitly, to muzzle it troubles me. Troubles me a lot. On the most basic level this is because I know many of these women, and most of them have a lot of interest to say - lots that is provocative, insightful, reflective, and honest. But more generally because I fear a world in which any single group is being told, for no good reason, to shut up.
I don't know that I have a good conclusion to this yet, but I know it's on my mind. I also know that like other friends and bloggers I know, I am both unwilling and, more importantly, unable to stop talking. I will not be muzzled; I believe there is too much to be gained by telling our stories, whoever we are and whatever formal education we have.
Then one of my favorite new blogs, Ivy League Insecurities, took up the topic with a thought-provoking response.
I found myself mulling this over all weekend as I hiked, and handed children hand-over-hand down a rock ravine, and lay in a camp bunk trying to sleep as 11 people stirred around me.
My initial reaction is that the growing resentment among the many for the "privileged few," especially women, is just another form of judgment by superficial labels. How is extrapolating from people's external situations to draw assumptions about their personalities, values, and problems any different whether the person being stereotyped and judged is privileged or not? Isn't it the same kind of superficial judgment in either direction?
And then I thought more. I have certainly been made to feel, many times, that my own concerns and fears are somehow less legitimate, less raw and real, because most of my life appears pretty well under control. And, when I am truly honest, sometimes I believe that too. Sometimes - actually, often - I chastise myself, saying: Come on. Pull yourself together. What do you want for? What do you need? You have so much. Why are you sad? And part of me believes this message, but part of me adamantly does not.
On the one hand, of course concerns of feeding your children or pressing fatal illness are much more significant than the things that rattle around my head. In fact, when I push this further, the kinds of issues that occupy me could be thought of as the province of the privileged; is it not an indulgence, a gift, even, to be able to worry about such small things? But then I know how keenly I feel things. I know that these worries are very real, often all-consuming.
So I guess the conclusion I come to is that it is not for any of us to judge the lives of others. It is not for us to make assessments of how valid are other people's points of view, intentions, or loves. It is impossible to know, from how someone looks on the surface, what is going on inside his or her heart. I have learned enough in my life to know that with absolute certainty.
Both posts are, in fact, about something beyond just this notion of outsides and insides. The claim that educated women are being told, implicitly and explicitly, to muzzle it troubles me. Troubles me a lot. On the most basic level this is because I know many of these women, and most of them have a lot of interest to say - lots that is provocative, insightful, reflective, and honest. But more generally because I fear a world in which any single group is being told, for no good reason, to shut up.
I don't know that I have a good conclusion to this yet, but I know it's on my mind. I also know that like other friends and bloggers I know, I am both unwilling and, more importantly, unable to stop talking. I will not be muzzled; I believe there is too much to be gained by telling our stories, whoever we are and whatever formal education we have.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
It has been a long week over here. Limping around on this bum knee (right leg) - and then today I kicked the crap out of my desk chair, hard enough to take a huge hunk of skin off my toe and make three or four big cuts in my foot (given: left leg). Doesn't it sound like a great time to go hiking? Stay tuned for more on that.
My mind, unquiet at the best of times, has been in overdrive. Sleeping? Not so great. The children? Not so mellow. You get the picture.
So I decided 'twas high time for a super frivolous post. And what's better for that than clothes!!?? At dinner the other night one of the Js and I were discussing the categories in our wardrobes.
I see three major categories - and let me preface this by saying that I long, I absolutely pine, to be one of those women with four pairs of pants and four shirts and they just mix and match and look divine all the time. Apparently I am constitutionally incapable of this. I have a closet that, despite an almost ebay power-seller rating, refuses to thin out. It is not monotone (though it does skew heavily black, white, gray, and cream) and it is not particularly unified. I am routinely that cliche of a spoiled brat, standing in her closet, wondering why she can find nothing to wear.
So. Categories. With "insight" (ha!). Don't hate me because my brain has turned to mush with all the screaming inside of it.
Casual clothes
Probably 40% of wardrobe, worn 75-80% of the time. This is jeans, Juicy sweats, tee shirts (short sleeve in summer and long sleeve cashmere in winter). The tee shirts now are usually of the Star Wars and Twister logo variety, mostly from Gapkids and Old Navy kids. I don't have any problem fitting into a girls L. I don't, ahem, need a lot of "room" upstairs. And yes, I like to dress like a 14 year old boy. I also have about 20 white wifebeater tank tops that I wear almost every day (either alone or under other shirts). Also Old Navy or Gap, and replaced regularly.
Summertime is white jeans, winter is dark, both some combo of Paige, Rock and Republic, and True Religion. Footwear is exclusively sneakers (Converse or old running sneakers) or flip-flops (one of my eight - yes, eight - pairs of Jack Rogers if I am really getting dressed up). I don't much care for shorts other than for running (will I ever do that again?) but I do have a couple of jean skirts, one dark and one white, that I sub in for "variety." (ha ha ha ha rolling on floor laughing almost as hard as at the awful the jokes Grace brings home from camp daily)
"Work" wear/anywhere I can't wear sweatpants
Probably 40% of wardrobe, worn 20% of time. This is my array of identical long-for-heels Theory pants, black, brown, gray, blue, and an equivalent array of J Crew ankle length cigarette pants for summer, also in black, khaki, white.
Also here are the 3ish J Crew camisoles I buy every year. That place just does silk camisoles (and, frankly, almost everything else!) right. Not fussy, fit me well, can go under a jacket (for the once-a-year occasion I actually have to don such a thing) or with jeans (the rest of the year).
Random jackets that I wear to my actual job, J Crew, Rebecca Taylor, Tuleh (from ebay, people, from ebay). A bunch of solid color sheath dresses that are all variations on the precise same shape (newest find is ivory boucle from Target, rather fabulous for the price if I do say so myself) and several DVF wrap dresses.
Footwear here is either real heels or flats. I simply do not do kitten heels, mid heels, low heels. I realize this is the M Obama go-to, and this is a place where, like the belting of everything, I will choose to respectfully disagree with her.
Cocktail/dressy attire
20% of wardrobe, of 0-5% of the time. During my one wonderful summer working as a buyer in New York, I overheard an expression that I just love. One of the other buyers bemoaned that she kept "buying clothes for a life she didn't have." And that is me with the cocktail dresses. I love me a simple pretty little dress. Sadly I never wear them. But there they are, lined up in the closet, mostly variations on strapless or spaghetti straps, knee length, straight but not tight. I'm a creature of habit!
And here is where the sparkly high heeled sandals live too (also gathering dust).
On this sadly unimpressive, almost unintelligible note I will go. To put on a pair of sweat pants, a tank top, and continue on my very unfashionable way.
My mind, unquiet at the best of times, has been in overdrive. Sleeping? Not so great. The children? Not so mellow. You get the picture.
So I decided 'twas high time for a super frivolous post. And what's better for that than clothes!!?? At dinner the other night one of the Js and I were discussing the categories in our wardrobes.
I see three major categories - and let me preface this by saying that I long, I absolutely pine, to be one of those women with four pairs of pants and four shirts and they just mix and match and look divine all the time. Apparently I am constitutionally incapable of this. I have a closet that, despite an almost ebay power-seller rating, refuses to thin out. It is not monotone (though it does skew heavily black, white, gray, and cream) and it is not particularly unified. I am routinely that cliche of a spoiled brat, standing in her closet, wondering why she can find nothing to wear.
So. Categories. With "insight" (ha!). Don't hate me because my brain has turned to mush with all the screaming inside of it.
Casual clothes
Probably 40% of wardrobe, worn 75-80% of the time. This is jeans, Juicy sweats, tee shirts (short sleeve in summer and long sleeve cashmere in winter). The tee shirts now are usually of the Star Wars and Twister logo variety, mostly from Gapkids and Old Navy kids. I don't have any problem fitting into a girls L. I don't, ahem, need a lot of "room" upstairs. And yes, I like to dress like a 14 year old boy. I also have about 20 white wifebeater tank tops that I wear almost every day (either alone or under other shirts). Also Old Navy or Gap, and replaced regularly.
Summertime is white jeans, winter is dark, both some combo of Paige, Rock and Republic, and True Religion. Footwear is exclusively sneakers (Converse or old running sneakers) or flip-flops (one of my eight - yes, eight - pairs of Jack Rogers if I am really getting dressed up). I don't much care for shorts other than for running (will I ever do that again?) but I do have a couple of jean skirts, one dark and one white, that I sub in for "variety." (ha ha ha ha rolling on floor laughing almost as hard as at the awful the jokes Grace brings home from camp daily)
"Work" wear/anywhere I can't wear sweatpants
Probably 40% of wardrobe, worn 20% of time. This is my array of identical long-for-heels Theory pants, black, brown, gray, blue, and an equivalent array of J Crew ankle length cigarette pants for summer, also in black, khaki, white.
Also here are the 3ish J Crew camisoles I buy every year. That place just does silk camisoles (and, frankly, almost everything else!) right. Not fussy, fit me well, can go under a jacket (for the once-a-year occasion I actually have to don such a thing) or with jeans (the rest of the year).
Random jackets that I wear to my actual job, J Crew, Rebecca Taylor, Tuleh (from ebay, people, from ebay). A bunch of solid color sheath dresses that are all variations on the precise same shape (newest find is ivory boucle from Target, rather fabulous for the price if I do say so myself) and several DVF wrap dresses.
Footwear here is either real heels or flats. I simply do not do kitten heels, mid heels, low heels. I realize this is the M Obama go-to, and this is a place where, like the belting of everything, I will choose to respectfully disagree with her.
Cocktail/dressy attire
20% of wardrobe, of 0-5% of the time. During my one wonderful summer working as a buyer in New York, I overheard an expression that I just love. One of the other buyers bemoaned that she kept "buying clothes for a life she didn't have." And that is me with the cocktail dresses. I love me a simple pretty little dress. Sadly I never wear them. But there they are, lined up in the closet, mostly variations on strapless or spaghetti straps, knee length, straight but not tight. I'm a creature of habit!
And here is where the sparkly high heeled sandals live too (also gathering dust).
On this sadly unimpressive, almost unintelligible note I will go. To put on a pair of sweat pants, a tank top, and continue on my very unfashionable way.
Live in the layers
The Layers (Stanley Kunitz)
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and how my tribe is cattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
whereever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed to me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
(I had the first 6 lines above my desk for years, but had never seen the whole poem until now. I resonate with the question of how to reconcile the heart with a "feast of losses," and share the sense that I am not done with my changes. Also that living in the layers is the way to a meaningful life - for me at least.)
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and how my tribe is cattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
whereever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed to me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
(I had the first 6 lines above my desk for years, but had never seen the whole poem until now. I resonate with the question of how to reconcile the heart with a "feast of losses," and share the sense that I am not done with my changes. Also that living in the layers is the way to a meaningful life - for me at least.)
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Cortisone and stillness
About three weeks ago my right knee started really hurting. In a way very different from the diffuse and roaming joint pain that I've had for ages (one day wrist, another day ankle, another day knee). I stopped running and waited. After 10 days it still hurt so I went to see an orthopedic guy that my regular doctor recommended.
That doctor could not have been more dismissive. He told me that I had a "woman problem" (I flashed back to all of the women declared hysterical for centuries - I imagine there are better than even odds that I would have been one of those women back in the day) that had to do with the "Q angle" between hip and knee (was he declaring me wide of hip? I wondered). Anyway, his prescription was ice, aleve, no running, and within two weeks it ought to be feeling much better.
Well, yesterday was day 11 and I was barely able to make up and down the stairs in this house. And seeing as my office is on the 3rd floor and kitchen on the 1st, that's a big problem. I called him back and spoke to him today. he has suggested a cortisone shot so I am heading in this afternoon to have a huge needle inserted into my knee. Yikes. Am envisioning something terrible and it will likely be a pinprick.
But the whole experience has made me ever more keenly aware of how absolutely terrible I am at sitting still. Resting is just not something I do well. A sentence to do no exercise for 2 weeks might thrill many people, but it terrified me. Not just because of the ever present fear of Getting Fat, but, actually, much much more because I need a way to burn off all of my excess nervous energy. I have been jittery with it the past few days.
I am simply not good at either being still or at being gentle with myself. Even when I did a ton of yoga, truth be told, it was an aggressive workout-style vinyasa and I often left before the end of shivasana. Sitting still with my thoughts - even worse, trying to not think - is not a strength. My few, feeble attempts at meditation has been torture for me for this reason.
I have rarely laughed as hard at a book (while simultaneously welling up with tears of sharp identification) as at the section in Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth Gilbert imagines the dialog between herself and her mind that goes on in the first 14 minutes of a 60 minute meditation. Of course being able to be physically still and being able to keep your mind still are two different things, but I would posit that the latter is truly impossible without the former.
So, of course I demonstrate how unevolved I am by going to get a shot in my knee so that I can go running again. But at least I'm thinking about it? Is that progress? I am not sure.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Kindred
J, J, and A,You are my kindred. I don't have any other relationships like these: we don't in fact know each others' lives that well, we don't know each others' families that well, yet we just understand each other in a way that is, to me, unique and wonderful.
We have much more in common than we don't. We are educated, we are curious, we are thoughtful, we are probably more than a touch neurotic. We are all accustomed to being in charge and in control; I feel a perceptible relaxation in myself, and sense it in each of you, when we sit down, order a glass of wine, and just let out a deep breath. Each time I see you I leave both comforted and inspired. You are three of the most capable, accomplished, intelligent, loving women I know. And you are, as far as I can tell, utterly unaware of your brilliance, which is part of the wonder of each of you.
In truth, I was intimidated when I met you, in turn, two in 1996 (A, I will never forget that very first interview at college - thank God you decided to pass me onto the second round) and one in 2001. I was awestruck, all three times, by similar things: you each seemed to me to be breathlessly competent, confident, breezing through life with ease, leaving a trail of admirers in your wake.
I was lucky enough to share my first pregnancy with you, A (that summer of daily milkshakes), and my second with you, J. Oh what sage counselors you both were, on life with a newborn and then on the sheer terror of life with more than one!
Each time I see you I learn something. We are unmistakably in the thick of Real Life, all of us, and we share a similar perspective on what contributes to identity and to a fully-lived life. A perspective that I have found very rarely in others; this makes each of you more important to me than you probably realize. We can talk about subjects ranging from silly to serious, from flip to fraught. I never tire of your stories and appreciate that each of you has both tremendous wisdom and great humor. I want you each to know that I admire you, I honor the grace with which you meet the challenges that I know about and those I don't, and I am genuinely grateful for your friendship.
Now, more sangria!
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Whit, Whit, and more Whit
This morning, as usual, Whit dressed himself.Camouflage hat, size 18 months Princeton tee shirt, exercise pants, and red plastic Old Navy flipflops (from, I believe, the girls section). Perhaps a sad statement on my life, but one of the highlights and things I look forward to most each day is what Whit emerges from his room sporting.
At swimming he again wore his manly pink swim shirt, apparently choosing pink goggles to best complement it.
After swimming I guess he wanted to offset all that manly pink with some weight lifting. I'm frankly impressed that my flyweight could hoist these dumbells. Guess he did some sets & reps.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Independence
Grace did three independent things on Independence Day:She biked four blocks home from a walk, well out of adult sight.
She walked home from Biege's house alone, two blocks down Main Street, including crossing the town's main street.
She swam, with Matt, out to the second (and furthest away) raft at the beach.
These must have had cumulative effect, because by the time I watched her, a tiny waving speck on the far away dock, I found my heart in my throat. It seems so imminent, her walking away; as much as I encourage her independence, often to the point where I worry about the message I send, I also feel keenly her movement away.
I don't think I live vicariously through my children, but I definitely do fear the passage of time, and of course growing children mark this in a visceral, indelible way. I celebrate Grace's every achievement and new milestone and simultaneously say goodbye to a stage of life I will never have again.
Today, like many days in these Adventures in Parenthood, I am both proud and sad, in a powerful, sometimes choking cocktail.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
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