Our neighbor took this gorgeous picture of our daughters at the beach. I’m posting it today because my hands are exhausted from a full day of typing and my head is overwhelmed at the way my “little ones” are growing up so quickly.
At Chapman all of the freshmen are arriving this week for Orientation. They are wandering all around the campus with their parents in tow. It won’t be so very long before that is me, launching my kids into the next phase of their lives…
About ten years ago began to think deeply about the ways I was gender-typing my children. Though I’ve always been a fairly open-minded parent, I could see that my gentle teasing to my son about his interactions with the cute girls in his class, or my suggestion to my daughter that she style her hair a particular way were based on the gender stereotypes that I didn’t necessarily agree with ideologically. And while I saw that my academic language was evolving to me more gender-neutral, sometimes I had to work hard to be more inclusive with gender-based ideas in my parenting and other daily interactions. This wasn’t because I held gendered expectations about my children per se, it was more due to the pervasive way in which it was unknowingly embedded my behavior and speech.
When I recently went through the SafeSpace training for Chapman University, we participated in an exercise that caused us to reflect on the many ways our society creates and reinforces sex-based binaries. Since then I’ve made note of each time I’ve been forced to declare my gender and wondered how awkward it might feel if my gender assignment at birth and my gender expression were different. I’ve marveled at how frequently those Male/Female questions are asked on forms for travel, medical care, employee benefits, and financial records. When possible, I’ve stopped declaring my sex, but I rarely see this as an allowed option (and I hate that word “other” on sex-based questions–how dehumanizing that seems).
Because I think so much of the way we experience gendered expectations on a daily basis is subtle–so subtle we don’t even notice it–I am going to try an experiment in a few weeks and hope you’ll join in. On September 1st, I’m going to tweet every moment in my day that I experience a gendered interaction. Whether it’s the choice of a restroom to use, an interaction where I’m callled “ma’am,” a time when I’m forced to make a choice on a form that asks for F or M, or any other moment where I feel that gender plays a role in my day. If you’re willing, I’d like for you to join me in this exercise, and also participate in reflecting on the experience either here in the comments of this post or on your own blog. For easy searching I’ll be marking my tweets with the hashtag #genderd (shorthand for “Gender Day”), and will collect all the tweets into a twapperkeeper for archival purposes.
Many of you might remember my blogpost from two years ago, “What Has to Be Done.” That post, and the talk I gave alongside famous blogger Heather Armstrong (of dooce.com) brought over 30,000 new readers to my blog. What a hard time that was. As I suffered through the pain of my surgery and the side-effects of the intensive antibiotic therapy, I wondered whether my plans to finish my PhD were evaporating. I questioned whether my mobility might be forever impacted by the surgery and the persistence of the infection. I marveled at the support of my family and my community even as I worried about John’s ability to hold together our lives while my health was so fragile.
About a year ago, I faced another moment of “what had to be done” when local LDS leaders chose to summon my spouse to an ecclesiastical court. I attended that event to testify on his behalf, and also to observe the events closely. It was a time when my own relationship with the church was tenuous, and seeing how this event proceeded was a significant step in my realization that I could no longer be an active adherent of the Mormon faith. Lately many of those feelings have been bubbling up again–I drive past the temple and the local LDS meetinghouse almost daily, which serves as a constant reminder of the church’s impact on my life. Even now I remain cosmically disappointed in the Mormon church and its leaders (on all levels–local, regional, and global), despite supporting my friends who are members. I feel a rather irrational amount of anger at the group of men who conducted John’s church court proceedings, especially because they were people in whom I’d once placed a great deal of trust. Distancing myself from the church wasn’t because I was “offended” by these leaders, it was that I could no longer put my faith in an institution where leaders could wield so much power (such as the power to sever my sealing to my spouse) so irresponsibly. Choosing to walk away from my LDS community was hugely difficult for me, given all that I had invested in the church through the years.
On July 25th this year (in sharp contrast to July 25th two years ago when I was being re-admitted to the hospital for my leg infection), I was in Fairfax, Virginia meeting with a group of twelve digital humanists to embark on a radical tool-building experiment. My colleague Effie, described our process on her blog today as “doing what needs to be done” (see the last paragraph). I loved that she said that, because I hadn’t thought of our fast-paced development process in that way until now. That phrase helped me to see the connective threads in my life from a point two years ago when I was purely in ‘survival’ mode, to the point that I’m at now with an abundance of opportunities ahead. I feel as though the lessons I’ve learned since then continue to serve me in my scholarly and creative work, as well as in my spiritual life. For now, “what needs to be done” is to focus on my dissertation while juggling an exciting array of side projects and the needs of my family (as well as squeezing in plenty of time out paddling on the ocean and time for quiet contemplation–sometimes simultaneously). I feel so fortunate to have the health and confidence to move forward with my dreams. These past two years have taught me much.
Last night my plane sat on the tarmac for more than 30 minutes before getting gate clearance. And we ended up being unloaded rather far off to one end of the airport so I came in a side door on a far gate rather than the regular JetBlue terminal. This meant that I exited the airport and walked down to where John awaited me at baggage claim. Seeing him from afar, I almost didn’t recognize him! Those six weeks of unruly uncut curls! But what was truly awesome was that he was positioned at the gate, watching the door, with his back to where I was. So I came up behind him and watched his body shift (almost in slow motion, like a movie) as I whispered. Love, I’m here. And then he took me in his arms and I buried my head in that strong shoulder of his and let the tears fall.
The past week has, of course, been one of the most exciting times of my professional life. Working with the brilliant and affable people of the One Week | One Tool team exceeded my expectations in every which way. I especially loved that it was a diversion from the challenges of the weeks that had preceded it. Even though we were working super-hard on our project, it was actually far less stressful than the weeks that had preceded it…
I’d had a perfect storm of DH experiences over the summer–such amazingly rich conferences. But I’d also been solo-parenting the kids while John was at Clarion (managing all of the end-of-school-year busy-ness along with their personal and outrigger team schedules), had just started a full-time job where in the space of four weeks I rolled out two major web projects and oversaw a large-scale courseware migration project, was in training for the time trials for the adaptive team for the Outrigger World Champs, and was managing the health needs of a critically-ill cat. And throw into the mix the care of a 450 sq ft summer garden, various household projects, a car that broke down, a dissertation-in-progress, a broken prosthetic leg (temporarily fixed so I could travel), 3 major trips (including two across international borders), etc. And I think….it was just about too much.
I feel now, a bit shell-shocked at all that has happened the past few weeks. I’m terribly behind on emails and thank yous and stuff. I have a mountain of laundry. I have plenty of stuff to do to prepare for Tuesday’s OneWeek software launch. I’m also finding that I just can’t seem to turn off my brain. I keep yammering on about work to John and can hardly enjoy the pleasures of home. I’m not trying to complain–really the magic of all I’ve learned and done leaves me with no regrets. But I am…exhausted and raw. I need some time, some ocean, my lover’s arms, and some good deep sleep…
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.
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?
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.
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!
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!
For me, however, what I first noticed about this image, was how his chest is open to receive the world. When I do yoga, many of my favorite poses involve opening my chest in this same way. It’s an exposed feeling to lead with one’s heart like this. It’s vulnerable. But given that so much of what we do in our lives involves holding things close, shoulders hunched over and arms grasping, it feels good to open up and let go. To let the world take us where it will.
One of my favorite things is to float on the ocean in this posture–arms outstretched and heart filling up with the sun.