I keep writing and re-writing what I want to say in this post, and it still isn’t coming out right. But here’s an attempt…
Although I’ve been “very productive” in my life these past few years–working towards my PhD, advancing my career, pursuing my hobbies passionately, supporting my family, etc. Many things still fall through the cracks….
For most of my life I wrote letters to my extended family members weekly, and dutifully visited them. For the past five years, I have only intermittently remembered their birthdays and other gifty-holidays. I rarely call. Thank you notes are mostly unwritten. When my great-aunt died a few days ago, I was completely shamed by how lax I’ve been in supporting her the past couple of years.
I feel truly awful about this, and the more I realize how terrible I feel, the more it compounding all of the other ways in which I fail everyday. Whether its missing a deadline, or blurting out something asinine in an academic conversation, or forgetting to follow-up with a friend…I mess up constantly. Constantly.
Some days I just wish I weren’t so fallible, so busy, so careless, so self-absorbed, so tired, so focused, so weak.
Over the years I’ve written and spoken about buying a piano. I apologize for any who’ve already heard this one before (but maybe, like all good songs, it’s worth replaying occasionally)….
We bought this piano during a time that I was at the lowest low of depression, and needed some way out. I’d taken years of lessons as a young girl and had this inkling of a desire to play and sing again. So we bought an inexpensive yet serviceable digital piano from our favorite local music store. And I bought some music. Mostly showtunes and Enya and some Sting and a bit of Cat Stevens. Playable singable stuff.
It took my fingers awhile to remember how to play. And my voice was creaky and weak (I was also suffering from chronic bronchitis and had a physician who wasn’t helping me to get better), but my abilities grew as I kept playing. My kindergartener and toddler liked playing, too, and they could even recognize the Disney tunes and church melodies.
That piano was a catalyst to my finding my voice again. That, and I started taking classes at a community college with an eye towards graduate school. And soon after I started blogging–these words became my therapy to express the numbness happening inside my head…
Long story short: the kids played piano for a few years and then moved on to other instruments that they liked better. I rarely played much anymore because I had papers to write or to grade. The piano turned into a dust-gatherer that moved from room to room. It lived at a friend’s house for awhile and got some good use there, but it wasn’t getting any attention at ours.
So on Sunday, we moved our piano to our Quaker Meetinghouse. The very best part of that move? Knowing that it will continue to bring light to those who hear the music. I especially love the intention to use the piano for inter-generational singing. Perfect.
Back in the days when I was dating, nearly every Halloween I started a new relationship. I didn’t actually realize that pattern until years later, when I was connecting the dots in my photo album. I’d see me in a costume and then realize that was the night that I met “so-and-so.” Was it just the costumes that did that, or was it those not-to-be-missed Newport Beach Halloween dances emceed by Richard Blade (note: beware clicking on that link–it’s loud!)? Perhaps it was because every October after I’d settled into the school year I was looking for something new and it was convenient to let that emerge on a night where I might be emboldened by a costume?
Since being married to John, we’ve dressed up nearly every year (except maybe that year that I was hugely pregnant with Catgirl–I don’t think I wore a costume). For a long time, we kept with our pirate theme, capitalizing on that look from the first time I ever danced with John (to Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” of course), but we’ve also worn black and worn girlie things or manly things (ok, that latter link is just a figment of my imagination, but it’s worth a click anyways), dressed as fictional characters, and even changed our minds at the last minute about our costumes.
So this post isn’t about me starting a new relationship this Halloween, even thought that’s how it began. And it’s not about what costume I’m going to wear, even though I’m looking forward to dressing up. What it’s really about is the need to be something else for a little while.
Although in recent years I’ve embraced risk-taking and facing my fears, I’m actually a fairly reserved and risk-adverse person (I’m a historian, for crying out loud!). I wear fairly conservative clothes, I listen to my music at a respectable volume, I match my socks and fold them into tidy rolls in my drawer. For the most part, I find routine and structure quite satisfying. I don’t wear loud makeup or attention-grabbing clothing or anything that will draw a second glance. I like plain and simple.
But then there’s this one day of the year where I try something totally different. Like a kimono. Or a tutu. Or a wig. It feels good to experiment with that alternate identity for awhile and to see how it feels. On a day when no one will much notice how far I’ve stepped outside of my normal boundaries.
Last year in October I dyed some sections of my hair neon purple. There was no particular reason for me to have purple hair, it just seemed like something worth trying. I was curious if it wold affect the way people interacted with me and/or the way I felt about myself. As far as I can tell, it didn’t really have much of an impact other than being novel.
Much of my life lately seems to hinge on that novelty factor. There’s such a rush from trying new things, or experimenting with new ways of doing things.
One thing, however, that I thought would always be a constant in my life, is my love for books. But ever since I started reading e-books, my love for actual books with paper pages has waned. I like being able to browse through a text quickly via keyword searching. I like being able to jump from TOC to chapter with the click of a link. And having all of my devices synced to that exact page in the novel that I’m reading…has stimulated my love of reading all over again. Instead of needing to carry a book with me to fill in the gaps of my day, I can simply turn on the kindle app on my phone, and be back where I stopped reading the night before.
What about you, are you reading ebooks? If so, how are you liking them? Are they changing your reading habits?
Quite some time ago, I wrote about my shoulders on my blog, and about the various scars/scar tissue that I’ve struggled with over the years. My left shoulder, especially, gives me a lot of discomfort due to the old scars and the memories that it seems to hold in the muscle fibers. Occasionally when I’m paddling I feel a bit of a pop and a loosening in the tissue at the front of my shoulder and realize that some old tension there has just released itself. It both hurts and feels good to feel those changes.
But what’s probably the most remarkable thing about my shoulders is that they are my most important weight-bearing joint. I walk on and with my shoulders everyday when I use my crutches. Over the years those shoulders have adapted in some remarkable ways to the tasks they bear. Like today, I went rock climbing with John in the morning (sans prosthetic) and my shoulders carried most of the load of my body as I pulled and stretched on the wall. And then when we went grocery shopping afterwards, I used my shoulders to bear all of my weight (via the crutches) so I could use my hands to push the grocery cart. It probably looks awkward, but it works well for me because I’ve been doing this kind of thing for 27 years (or so). The few times that I’ve injured my shoulders have been scary–I depend on them so much for moving and balancing. If I had a long-term shoulder injury, my mobility would actually be more limited than with an injury to my foot or leg. That frightens me.
Sometimes I wonder if I should protect my body more rather than subjecting it to hard workouts with swimming and paddling and rock climbing, or whatever else the exercise du jour is. Perhaps I should do something safe and gentle. Perhaps I should avoid straining and stretching–just in case. I don’t want to risk chronic injury or a lifetime of joint pain. But then there’s this other part of me that fears that if I weren’t asking so much of my shoulders, that they wouldn’t grow strong enough for a lifetime of heavy lifting.
Tonite’s post finds me snuggled in on the couch. I’m sneezy right now, and my glands are swollen. That’s probably far more than you wanted to know about me, but this post is going to have a bit more TMI than my usual, so I thought I’d just get warmed-up from the get-go….
For quite some time now I’ve been meaning to follow up on my #genderd experiment. At the close of that day, one of the things I realized was that I never tweeted about using the bathroom. And I should have. It’s one of the most explicitly gendered choices I make several times per day at the office. I work on the floor of a building that has two restrooms. They are both single stalls with locked doors. One has signage for men, and one for woman. Or at least, they did back on September 1st when I did my #genderd experiment. But shortly after that day, I received an email from Chapman University’s SafeSpace Committee saying that they were working to locate all single-stall bathrooms on campus and change them from an assigned-sex bathroom to a gender-neutral bathroom. So I replied to them about the ones on my floor and suggested that the change would be particularly welcome because the floor primarily has women’s offices, so there can often be a line for the women’s bathroom, but I’ve never seen any men waiting in line for their designated stall. And honestly I thought many times about just using the men’s stall myself–given that it had a locking door, what would be the harm in doing so? But because I still felt so new at my job and I felt too uncomfortable to push the social boundary of using the opposite-sex bathroom stall in front of my colleagues. So I didn’t.
When I returned from my trip last week I discovered new signage on the men’s stall. It now has a men/women/wheelchair sign, while the women’s bathroom stall signage stayed the same. I think that’s peculiar, but I haven’t yet written to the the campus sign-maker to see why both stalls weren’t given the same signs. But perhaps what’s more interesting, are the surprised looks on the faces I’ve seen when I use the now-gender-neutral stall. After I exit that door I’ve seen colleagues walk up very close to the sign as if to see if it’s “real.” I’ve only seen one other woman ever use it, and she wasn’t a regular on our floor.
While I think having one neutral stall on the floor is certainly progress, I still think it would be far better to have two neutral stalls. Because it seems that as long as there is a women’s stall, the other stall will be “not women’s.” However, it could be that the reason they kept one as women’s is that it includes the wastebin at the side of the toilet for “hygiene” products (what a janitor friend of mine affectionately called the “cigar box”), and the formerly-men’s bathroom doesn’t have that feature. I’ve also noticed each time I use the not-women’s restroom that the toilet seat has been left up. I’m going to guess that that’s a leftover from when it was a “men’s” stall only.
And…speaking of men…
Last week I had the strangest concurrence of experiences. By the third time it happened I was so rattled, I could hardly make my way back to the place where I was staying for the night…
Three times in three days I had men call me out in public space, yelling sex-laden obscenities. What is probably most bizarre about this experience is that I’ve never had a man even so much as whistle my direction before (unless, perhaps, it was my partner being playful). Catcalls from strangers seemed like something that happened to streetwalkers and not to women that look like me. I suppose I’ve never experienced this because I don’t often walk in urban spaces–I’ve tended to live in middle-class suburban areas. But I also suspect that women who are disabled are far less likely to garner attention from male strangers.
The third time this happened I was alone and in a fairly deserted area of a city where I knew I probably shouldn’t be walking at night. But I was hungry and there was a corner store a few blocks away. I was sure I’d be just fine. And I was. But having a group of men following behind me and hurtling obscenities my way as I walked down the block? I was so scared. What was I scared of? Scared, knowing that I couldn’t run if they came after me. Scared, because I didn’t think I could dial anything coherent on my cellphone of they neared. Scared, because there was no one else nearby to hear if I should scream. Looking back on it now, it’s possible that these men might’ve even thought that they were flattering me with their opinions about my body. Perhaps they thought that I would respond back playfully or provocatively. But I think they knew that what they were doing was cruel and that I was scared shitless, despite my attempt to walk even more tall and confidently down the block as the vulgarity continued.
There was nothing in my clothing or in my behavior that indicated that I would be a target for men’s attention. I have a “boy” haircut, I’m nearly 40 years old. I was not wearing makeup and I was wearing “Mom” jeans (read: not sexy). But I was identifiably female, still, which is why I suppose I was a target.
I deliberately choose to raise my kids in an upper-middle-class neighborhood where just about anyone can safely walk at night. Though there are occasionally some college rowdy college students around, there is little to fear in my environment. There are, of course, costs to living in such a homogeneous suburban community, and lately I’ve wondered if we haven’t veered towards being too “safe” in choosing a place to live. For example, I relish the vibrancy of the urban neighborhoods that I found on recent travels through Oakland, San Francisco, and in San Diego, and felt the contrast to our “vanilla” community quite keenly. And while I usually don’t feel that I fit in my neighborhood (I am not really a vanilla gal, myself), it would be hard for me to change now if it meant facing the kind of jeering that I experienced last week on a regular basis. I suppose I would get used to it–perhaps even expect it. But it’s hard for me to imagine that now, I suspect I might just always be afraid.
I really really really want to write a long blogpost about my experiences from this past week and my meetings with scholars in NorCal.
But….
I am home. And I just need to be home for a few hours.
And…
I have so much work calling my name, it might be a few days before I get to share all that I’ve learned with you.
In the meantime, let me share just one little thing. Last week while I was staying with my friend Barbara, we decided to go rock climbing at Mission Cliffs. It was sort of a spontaneous adventure and because I didn’t have my beach/sport leg on hand, I climbed as a uniped. And you know what? It felt so right. I clambered up the wall face faster than ever before–hopping from one “hold” to the next with my one foot, and using my arms to pull me up each time. I felt so free and strong hanging on that wall and now I can’t wait to go back and try it that way again. I didn’t get a picture of myself up on the wall last week, but here’s one of me climbing bipedally from a few months ago…
It was hard for me to tweet this weekend for a variety of reasons, one of those being that I misplaced my phone charger cord (ack!), and another being that I was participating in an “unconference” called THATCamp Bay Area that required a great deal of attentiveness. But probably the most significant reason that I wasn’t tweeting was that I felt uncomfortable with being a part of a select group of attendees at this event, knowing that many qualified people weren’t able to attend. That took a great deal of the pleasure out of advertising my own presence. I know that’s a bit ridiculous, and if anything is counter-intuitive because I ought to be tweeting precisely because it would include non-attendees in the conversation. But I didn’t over-analyze my resistance–instead I immersed myself more wholly in being present. While at the conference I talked quite a bit about my work with One Week | One Tool, but I felt awkward about advertising the fact that I was part of this project too loudly, again knowing how many scholars vied for positions on the team and feeling somewhat self-conscious about my own good fortune in winning one of the golden tickets to participate.
Digital Humanities tends to be quite an inclusive community (as some have said, it is a “big tent”). At my core, I believe in open-source, freely-shared tools and content. I don’t like cliques and in-groups and members-only clubs. I feel everyone has a place at the table and I’ll undoubtedly continue to struggle with those moments when some are excluded because there aren’t enough chairs for everyone who wants to join the feast.
Perhaps I’m feeling overly self-conscious about my own good fortune in attending these events. Or perhaps I’m concerned that I’ll be labeled as a member of a particular inner-circle of DHers that I don’t really feel a part of. Or perhaps I’m simply insecure about my own place in the field. It’s probably a combination of all-of-the-above, as well as a recognition of how much I still have yet to learn from those around me.
And speaking of that….I’ll be in the Bay Area for the next few days meeting with scholars and friends. If you’d like to see if we can connect, drop me a note in a comment or via twitter.
Our Toby kitty is ill again. We are holding out hope that her latest med cocktail might help her feel normal again, but also know that her condition does seem to be worsening over time…
It’s hard to be far away while she’s so ill. It’s hurts to love so much.
Have you ever used crutches? If so, you know just how cumbersome they can be. If you’re not actually walking with them at the moment, they’re either underfoot tripping someone or they’re leaning against a wall and in an inconvenient space. They’re also pretty hard to stow in most compact cars.
One of the things that makes travel a challenge for me is that I always bring crutches along. Because if I don’t have a set, I’m likely to be in a circumstance where I’ll lose my mobility. Like maybe I’m staying in a hostel and the bathroom is more than a few hops away from my bed. Or maybe I want to swim in a pool and there’s no dry safe space for me to stow my bionic leg within an easy skooch from the pool (and given that it costs $25K for the knee alone, it’s not worth risking some random splashing). Or maybe (just maybe) I want to spend some time at the beach and get my foot wet. In any of those circumstances I really need the crutches.
But carrying crutches around along with luggage is such a pain.
On my last speaking stint I arrived the night before and stayed in a hotel so I would be fresh for the next day’s talk. But because I was checking out of the hotel on my way to the talk, I had to bring my luggage with me. Which also meant bringing my crutches. It was more than a bit awkward to arrive at my speaking engagement with an overnite bag, crutches, and my presentation materials.
And this next trip that I’m going on to the Bay Area, I’ll be moving from one sleeping place to another at least three different times in one week. And each time that’ll mean using public transport with crutches and bag(s), perhaps lugging everything along to conference events and campus visits. I keep trying to figure out some way to not have to carry those crutches along every time, and….I think there isn’t one. I feel so terribly whiny admitting my annoyance at those crutches.
If today you found yourself curled up on the couch after lunchtime, indulging in novel-reading, and while reading, there was this tender conversation between two soldiers–one who’d only just barely had a finger amputated and one who had lost a leg long ago but was dying of consumption…
And if when the younger, now-nine-fingered soldier handed the dying soldier his missing finger for it to be buried along with the dying soldier, you started bawling and had to put the book down. Because if this is you, you realized that so rarely had you ever read a scene that captured the loss so well. And when older soldier explained to younger one that he would still feel his finger there–even decades after it was gone–you wiggled your phantom toes a bit and remembered that you feel that way, too.
