Jana Remy
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    • Disability
    • Making History
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      • dayofDH
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      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
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Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
Monthly Archives

May 2008

live now…
deep thoughts

live now…

I think Sara’s really onto something with this phrase and logo. As for me, I am living extraordinaire right now, heading off to a weekend with the Exponent girlz.

So much to do to prepare, so little time to pull it all together. But at least I am living. Yes. Living, breathing, working, playing catchup from weeks of bedrest, hardly able to find a second to sit down.

It feels pretty damn good, my friends.

How are you living right now?

May 30, 2008
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gardenmake me smile

Make me smile…

–one more hurdle crossed, my first-ever baseline mammogram. Whew. Like when the tech said I had to hold my breath while she took the film, I wanted to say (had I had breath to do so), how could I not hold my breath when she has just squished me into this vise? But really it was far faster and far less painful than I’d been led to believe. And it’s over and from what they said this may well be the most painful one (given that boobs tend to get smooshier over time, I suppose?). [Note: I am a bit on the young side for a mammogram, but I’ve recently learned that women who had my type of cancer and treatment have a much higher risk of breast cancer]

–drove to Long Beach and back in record time to get GameBoy’s cello repaired in the nick of time before his grande concert. Jacarandas were everywhere along the way. How can that not make me smile?

–had some QT in the garden yesterday. Planted more basil (for 14 plants total this year! pesto, anyone?), marigolds, asters, peppers, one more tomato (squeezed in just so), and a new-to-me type of lavender (that makes four so far). I have the most amazing new garden neighbors who are planting cucumber vines all along our shared fence (yum). And did I tell you that blackberry season just began–I nibbled my first 2 last Wednesday and expect to have a few cupfuls by mid-week? I didn’t get the corn in this weekend as I’d hoped, but fortunately I can plant it until late July if need be. As I was telling a friend yesterday, I refuse to feel garden guilt if I can’t get everything in as early as possible. I’m taking things one step at a time this year….

:)

May 27, 2008
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so sweet
make me smile

so sweet


a perfect little gift, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

If it was your birthday, and if you found this sweet little package waiting for you this morning, you might be especially thrilled to offer your beloved some vanilla-lavendery kisses.

My lips could get very spoiled by all of this….

:)

May 25, 2008
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drive-by
Random

drive-by


all the pretty jacaranda, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Snapped this pic as I was driving down the street this afternoon. I just couldn’t help myself. Fortunately there was no one behind me so we didn’t end up getting rear-ended….

:)

May 25, 2008
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steps in the sand
Random

steps in the sand


pilgrimsteps, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

May 23, 2008
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Random

A beach holiday


A beach holiday
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl

Because the kids were off of school today, we decided it would be super fun to go to the beach. Oddly enough for a May day in SoCal, it was barely 60 degrees and the winds were more than 16mph at the beach near our home. Shortly after I took this vid it started pouring rain. At that point we decided that heading home was sounding pretty good…

:)

May 23, 2008
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half-jack and half-jill
Johnsongs/poetry

half-jack and half-jill

Dresden Dolls, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

I don’t get out much.
I’ve only been to like three concerts in my entire life
And when I see the price of tickets I usually convince myself that CDs are far cheaper

We sat closer than I’d expected.
So close that the fog machine gave me asthma
So I didn’t sing much, rarely yelled, whistled, or cheered
Just let the music work its way through me
And when my heart dropped right out of my chest
onto the floor between my feet
pulsing and beating with the entire theater
breathing together and open
I thought:
I want to play the drums, I want to play the piano, I want to be like her and like him and never leave this place.
I want a rock n roll life (their rock n roll life)
And nothing else seems this real
At the beginning of the show they said that when Amanda sings
you feel like you are a part of her
I get that now

A few random observations:
I expected a bit more of a theatrical “show” and a bit less music given the vids and clips of the DDs that I’d seen online. Other than a brief bit of theatrics at the beginning (masks and trenchcoats) it was just the music. Occasionally Amanda would pick a few flowers from the bouquet under her keyboard and walk around with them in hand, but that was it.

She was taller than I expected. More down-to-earth. Incredibly unselfconscious on stage. Brian was more of a showman with his wild drumstick manouvres.

The final song was “Half-Jack.” Though I’ve grooved to this tune many times, I really hadn’t wondered what it meant until singing along last night. I went online and found out that its about being half-father, half-mother. Word is that Amanda had a troubled relationship with her father (perhaps he abandoned her and her mother at a young age?). And that she’s always resented the part of her that’s “Half-Jack” or half of him.

So as I was singing along this morning I reflected on how my new understanding of the lyrics now affected my experience the song. And I thought about my own divided self, wondering which half of me was “half-Jack” and which part was “half-Jill.” But what struck me was not so much the genetic duality of myself. What struck me was the tension that I’ve so long felt in my psyche between myself my carnal self and my altruistic self. I used to see this duality as my godliness vs. my sinfulness. I no longer see it that way, but I still feel the definite pull of my “two-ness.” It reminds me of the quotation from black writer W.E.B. DuBois who spoke of the split consciousness of his identity:

“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,–a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,–an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,–this longing…to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” (excerpt from the Souls of Black Folk).

I feel that struggle daily, those “warring souls” and “unreconciled strivings.” I am both madonna and whore, lover and hater, parent and child, generous and cruel, male and female, mystic and atheist, ambitious and lazy, closed and exposed, rebel and conformist, peace-loving and war-mongering, patient and dismissive, intelligent and ignorant, mature and naïve, loving the light and craving the dark. Every day I am growing and every day I am dying. I am strength and I am weakness. I am human and I am a machine. I am half-you and I am half-me.

The lyrics of the song read, in part:

two halves are equal
a cross between two evils
it’s not an enviable lot
but if you listen
you’ll learn to hear the difference
between the halfs and the half nots
[….]
i’m halfway home now
half hoping
for a showdown
cause i’m not big enough to house this crowd
it might destroy me
but i’d sacrifice my body
if it meant i’d get the jack part OUT

Those last few lines illustrate the tension, the desire to rid oneself of the duality. Yes, I wish that I wasn’t part good and part bad, sometimes selfish more than self-less, full of hubris often more than humility. I’ve tried to sever the halves, to embrace only one side of the dicot, but this only seems to result in a withering of self, a descent into self-destruction, depression, torpor.

Ironically, perhaps, I can embrace, with some confidence, my identity as a Jack-Mormon. Or maybe that’s a Jill Mormon for those of us radical feminist types.

(photos by my other half)

May 23, 2008
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p.s.
make me smilesongs/poetry

p.s.

Yesterday I neglected to mention how I’m celebrating my anniversary today. Curious?

:)

P.S.: This is my odd synchronicity for today….I have always had a round belly (except for that one year that I was having chemo and I dropped to 70lbs). Anyways, I hate it. Well, I’m not the only one with the belly issue…(you’ll want to scroll down past the fish people part of Amanda’s blogentry to get what I mean and then watch the following vid set to the music of my all-time fav DD song, the one that I listen to daily at the end of my workouts where I do my damn situps to try to get rid of my belly)….

May 21, 2008
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Done!
deep thoughtsfamilyphoto

Done!


Sunset Reverie, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

[Note: this picture has nothing at all to do with this post–I just wanted to share it with you because it shows both CatGirl’s loveliness and John’s skill with his camera. It just sort of takes my breath away to see such beauty….]

Allright, so today I did something truly scary….I went to the doctor. I had a follow-up for my leg (healing well, thank you) and I simultaneously scheduled my “well-woman” checkup. It’s probably been at least 5 years since I’ve been in those stirrups. So my big New Year’s resolution for 2008 was to get that done. Well, it’s not even the end of May yet and I accomplished it. Whew.

I don’t know why it’s such a hurdle for me. I really had nothing that I was particularly worried about. It’s just that whole doctor thing….(bleh)

Tomorrow is the 24th anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with bone cancer, which usually ends up being a kind of a downer day for me. Not this year. I think I’ll celebrate instead. It’s such a thrill to still be kickin’ it every day with you groovy people.

:)

May 20, 2008
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bookssongs/poetry

on wolves, coyotes and gentle men

Just finished reading Amy Irvine’s memoir, Trespass. It’s a well-wrought story of a Jack-Mormon woman’s relationship to the land, in the style of Terry Tempest Williams. One of the threads in the story is about her relationship with Herb, a SUWA lawyer that she dubs the “lion man.” Late in the book she shifts his identity from lion to coyote. She writes [note that she’s speaking about a picture of the two of them near Lake Powell]:

“Herb, as usual, looks invincible. In this particular instance, it is as if the recessive climactic conditions that threaten the region [of Southern Utah]–combined with the stresses in our life–only strengthened his resolve to flourish.
Now as I stand in the home he has built, it is the photo that helps me grasp that he is not a lion an at all. He is pure Coyote–decadent, passionate, and possessing an inherent tendency to thrive in the worst of times.
But there’s more. He has his arms around me in a desperate sort of way–as if he’s trying to uphold my burgeoning mass [note: Amy is pregnant]. What strike me now, in thinking about the photo, is how he falls into anything that resembles the work of a savior–that this is how he gets duped into trying to hold the entire world in his hands…It’s not wonder that he feels so at home in Deseret–where God and biology are in perfect agreement that men and Canis latrans should take as much territory as possible. But, for all his sparkles and grins in that one photographic moment, his eyes are dark and resigned. It is the glimmer of resentment. The part that blames me for his hind legs’ getting caught in the snares of convention and duty. This part is his in our troubled equation…
His response was that of any trapped creature: to chew his paw off and run” (341-342).

This section of Amy’s book made me think of a poem that I posted way back in the early days of this blog, speaking about John and GameBoy:

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with apetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world
Unless they have a gentle one to love.
-James Kavanaugh

I think this is a tough world for most men. They are taught to repress emotion and/or are encouraged to act tough or even violently, even as they hunger for intimacy. At the same time, in our culture, they are shuttled into the role of breadwinner or provider. The burden of this makes it difficult for them not to play up to the men with the IBM eyes or the wolves of the corporate world. There seems so little space for men to play, to express creativity, to choose a profession that’s a passion rather than a “responsible choice.”

For many years I’ve been dependent on John to bring home the bacon, to provide health insurance, and to make my life (and our children’s lives) comfortable materially. It’s a huge burden that is not without emotional and physical cost. I am often unsurprised when I hear stories from friends of their husband’s mid-life crises. It’s no wonder that so many men “chew [their] paw off and run” to a place where they can live a fleeting fantasy for awhile.

Yes I realize that part of being an adult is doing things we don’t enjoy too much. The slogging mundanity of daily household chores, the endless errands that are required to keep a family outfitted and fed, the days of busywork at a job that depletes one’s soul. And I wonder, why does it have to be this way? And how can I remove myself and my beloved from this madness? How can we create a space to live and to thrive even as middle-class corporate America seems destined to suck the life right out of us? Where is the oasis in this desert? Where is the Innisfree where “peace comes dropping slow”?

Your thoughts?

May 19, 2008
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cuteness
photo

cuteness


Baby Squirrel Kitten, originally uploaded by mind on fire.

Does this look like a bunny stalker to you?

May 19, 2008
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jacaranda
make me smilephoto

jacaranda


Today, coming home from Meeting, we drove through several streets in Old Santa Ana like the one above–lined with Jacaranda trees. It was snowing neon purple blossoms. If I’d been feeling a bit better, I would have danced in the falling flowers.

pic by John

May 19, 2008
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About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

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