Practices

I think of meditation as a practice, a thing I do regularly because the doing it teaches me over and over how to be happy and peaceful and full of life. I have a lot of practices, and they are all routines that teach me how to be good at the things that make a fulfilling life, that teach me how to love the things that make a fulfilling life, and that teach me how to see that the things that make a fulfilling life are already present very often.

I got up this morning, made coffee, and sat in my reading chair to drink it. I spend several hours almost every morning all alone, reading and writing and thinking about a variety of things. This morning I got more information about how to cook healthy foods, thought about the value of lectures in the humanities, read a personal account of the connection between Tourette's and OCD, wrote about community and the connection between Buddhist Sanghas and intellectual community, and considered the effect The Crucible had on me (by self-reflection and writing and by learning a bit more about McCartheyism). Every day is different, but this undirected reading and thinking, this time for letting new ideas in is a practice aimed at delight, at data collection, and at constant integration.

This morning after my coffee, I ate a bowl of leftover roasted chicken covered in homemade chimichurri sauce. The routine of preparing chicken for one meal, using the bones to make broth, using the leftovers for some other meal, the routine of chopping and mixing and pouring, the smelling of each herb in the sauce, the movement of my hands, the sound of the food processor--each of these routines is a practice designed to make me better at making healthy food choices, make me a better planner, a better user of all parts of my food, more in tune with my body. And the tastes and smells and textures of the food and my practice of noticing those beauties while I shop, prepare, and eat, teach me to love the things that I know make me healthy and energetic. The conditions of happiness are already present for me when there is chimichurri sauce for breakfast; the world is already stocked with delightful things.

I sometimes tell people that I would like to be a monk, if only I were religious, and I kind of mean it. I am passionate about my practices, about seeing my day unfold with every hour devoted to some kind of ritual of love and learning. I like having my hours for study, my hours for work, my hours for eating, my hours for exercise, my hours for staring at the ceiling, my hours for loving Livy and Aaron and my friends. If to be a monk is to choose an all-consuming purpose and then to devote every hour for the rest of your life to that purpose, to cultivate yourself consciously to be the person who can embody that purpose, to teach yourself to love and to embrace willingly the things that you know are good, then I am a monk already. My chosen purpose is still unfolding, as I imagine a monk's purpose unfolds through the decades of his life, but I choose moving in the direction of better and better mental maps and of the joy of making them.

What Does It Mean to Be Intimate When I Am Very Unreserved?

It seems to me that when most people talk about intimate relationships, there is an element of exclusive knowledge. In this view, the people with whom one is intimate know secret things about you, understand you in a way outsiders don't. It seems like it is about knowledge exhange; one's intimates get more knowledge, as well as restricted kinds of knowledge.

This seems to work well as a definition for my Slytherin primary friends, people who have very clearly defined inner circles. The people inside really know the Slytherin, and the people outside don't have access to the private thoughts and feelings.

But for a person like me who is very unreserved, what does intimacy mean? I really like to be very open and talk about some of my most important thoughts and feelings publically. Or artists: don't they reveal a lot of their inner lives to others? Is privacy the only currency of intimacy? If I am not private, are all my relationships the same?

Obviously, they aren't. I can see that I have some relationships that are much closer, more important, and more intimate. For example, though I have written on my blog about my problems with over-Hufflepuffing (caretaking in an unhealthy way) for anyone to read, there are some people with whom I have discussed it again and again, giving examples that I didn't give publicly, asking for feedback.

So for me, intimacy seems to have these characteristics:

My intimates are the people who hear my ideas and stories and thoughts again and again, as I process them in real time. They are present for the gathering and sorting of the data, which is repetitive and not always coherent. I might share my generalizations in a public way and I might even narrate the process, but even that narrative will have been processed into a coherent format.

Connected to that, my intimates get all the data and examples. For one thing, I am convinced they want that much information about me and my ideas. For another, I trust them to be responsible with information that involves others. So if the data that I am working with to form my thoughts involves interactions with others, I know that I can trust my intimates not to share that data in ways that will be harmful to me or to the others. I can trust that they will be considerate and circumspect.

The third thing that is different about my intimate relationships is my desire for and reliance on feedback from those closer people. As I am thinking and figuring things out, I either actively seek or welcome their thoughts when given. They have credibility when it comes to thinking about me; their models of me are good because they have all that extra raw data and experience with my processing methods. In general, I don't mind kind feedback from anyone, but my intimates are people whose feedback is especially valuable and sought after.

Aside from these three characteristics, which seem solid to me, I am also wondering about a less solid lead I'm following in my head. When I think of the people with whom I am very intimate, I notice that my feeling of security is higher. I feel certain that they value me for the qualities I most want to be valued for. I feel certain that, though they see my flaws, they are not disgusted by them. I feel certain that their model of me is at once accurate and positive. (As an aside, I am talking about intellectual certainty; I am still working on feeling this certainty all the time.) I'm not sure if this feeling of security is a result of intimacy or something that I feel first and then that makes us intimate.

I'm still very uncertain, even after writing this post and understanding some better, about what intimacy looks like for a very unreserved person. There is obviously some privileged information involved, but there are other factors at play as well, and I'm not sure exactly what all of them are. I'd welcome comments on this from anyone, intimate or not.

Should I Be Back On Facebook?: Learning Not to Be an Altruist

I am kind of an accidental altruist. It might not be news to those who know me well, but it has been news to me, in that "Hey guys I'm gay." "Well, duh." kind of way.

I've learned that I have a strong tendency to be care-taking people in a kind of co-dependent way, and now that I have identified this tendency, I see its fruits all over my life. I withdrew from Facebook in order to tighten in my social circle, allow myself to regroup, and take time to figure this out. I've learned a few good lessons so far:

When people ask for help and agree on what their needs are, helping can be a good thing. But when I decide what I think people need and help them without their consent, that's kind of creepy.

When helping feels good to and benefits everyone, helping can be a good thing. But when helping someone leads me to feel resentment or exhaustion or pain or distress, the helping becomes an act of self-destruction.

And maybe most importantly, when helping comes from a solid core of self-worth and belief in one's loveableness and value, helping is a pure offering from generosity and benevolence. But when I help because that is the proof of my value, the necessary condition of being worthwhile or loveable, or the thing that prevents abandonment, the helping becomes impure, an offering not to the person being helped, but to my own inner demons.

So I got off Facebook, and it helped. The silence helped me focus on myself. I found that many of the triggers to be helping people in unhealthy ways were removed. I just didn't have to see the expectations of others, and so, I didn't have to face the difficulty of saying no and telling the inner demons to hush up. I didn't have to see evidence that made me think people needed my help, and so, I didn't have to fight the urge to help them in unhealthy ways. Having a tighter circle felt like training wheels: I could practice on relationships where I felt the most confident, committed, and supported in my new habits.

But now, I kind of want to come back. Partly because I am lonely. Aaron is working a lot, and I want a little more contact with my tight circle than I have. And I miss seeing some of the people I know less well: the pictures, the travels, the thoughts, the books. Partly, I want to test my new resolves in a bigger arena. Can I maintain these new behaviors in a setting that's harder?

I don't know the right answer about whether I should come back. But I think I will try it. If I find that I am not ready, I have new info and will pull back again and keep the training wheels a bit longer. If it goes well, I will find new ways to use Facebook that don't push me back into my caretaking habits. I'm just going to take the plunge and see what happens.

A side note is that I spent more time reading and writing (on this blog again!) without Facebook, and I liked that change. I'll see what happens with my time and my intellectal pursuits as well in this experiment.

Circling and Making Maps

I really identified with the desire the know what it feels like to be someone else that Malcolm Ocean describes in this post.

The inner lives of other people seem like the great mysteries that demand exploration, like the Poles used to be, or the Amazon, like outer space is now. Except more mysterious than that because the details of what the Poles are like or what another galaxy is like are available to us, more and more available as tehnology gets better. But I'm not looking for what another person is like, but what it is like to be them, to think with their neural pathways, to feel with their automatized emotions, to use their habitual ways of paying attention.

This attempt to know what another consciousness experiences is what circling is about. I wondered if Malcolm Ocean did any circling at Burning Man because I know circling happens there and his language seems to overlap heavily with the way circlers talk. And the point of circling is to listen and to watch and to encourage communication that lets people get inside someone else's world.

Circlers have this wonderful phrase "the water you swim in" that refers to all the things about your own conscious experience that just seem like the way everything always is, the way water must feel to a fish. And it is that habitualized, automatized world, the water we swim in, that it feels so impossble and so appealing to understand.

I think intimacy might be having a map that corresponds more closely than most people's map to the territory of someone's inner life. The map is necessarily worse than those old maps of some barely explored continent, but with intimacy, the continent is vaguely the right shape and some coast lines are distinct from constant exploration, though others are still barely seen and mapped with distortion.

And circling is when you show your map to the person whose territory you are mapping and say, "Tell me how to make this map better." And they are amazed that anyone could have seen this detail so clearly and equally amazed that this other detail could have been so wrong. And they try to describe to the mapmaker how they see and what they feel. And both mapmaker and territory benefit because the mapmaker gets a better map and a steadier hand for drawing borders and a set of tools to elicit the information he needs. And the territory sees that the terrain of his inner life is rich and interesting and valuable to someone else, that each rock or tree or spring always taken for granted as necessary and given and ordinary is actually unique, and his own view of the territory clears, no longer murky and misty--he opens his eyes, focuses hard, and sees the inner world around him distinctly.

Things I Learned on My Travels Aside from the Order of Succession of the Monarchy

I learned many things on my travels. I know a lot more about the early kings and queens of England, and that's saying something because I knew a pretty good amount before. I know more about human evolution, about meteorites, about Roman mythology, and about online writing centers. Here are some different lessons that I learned:

1. Always, always wear your barefoot shoes. No matter how stunning you think you look in your new black boots, DO NOT WEAR THEM FOR WALKING ALL DAY! How do people wear shoes like these all the time? They weren’t even heels!
2. When in England, eat Indian food at every meal.
3. You get used to extreme cold and wind after about a week and don’t need your scarf and extra layers anymore. You always need your gloves, though.
4. Don’t bother with an umbrella. No matter how much it is raining, the wind is always stronger and really does turn umbrellas inside out! I thought that was just in movies!
5. When you travel alone, you meet lots of interesting people. The days I was on my own, people talked to me everywhere I went. I met a Hungarian Ph.D. student, a father of a choir member, a man sitting at a café, a man taking the same walk I was who shared my distaste for a piece of modern art, and a nice old lady at church.
6. Always take the guided tours at cathedrals. The guides are always hilarious old people who know EVERYTHING and use the word “jolly” a lot.
7. Don’t pay attention to the reviews of English hotels. They are written by Americans who are used to convenience and space, and they always rank hotels low for being small and inconvenient. This isn’t helpful because everything in all of England is small (except for cathedrals) and inconvenient (except for drinking alcohol).
8. Never drive in York.
9. Cornish pasties are pretty good, but they do not rhyme with “tasty.” Instead, they have a short a sound, like nasty. A pAYsty goes on a stripper’s nipple.
10. The British believe very strongly in religious services and tradition and cathedrals, but not so much in god. In contrast, Southerners could worship in an outhouse if someone brought a New Testament with the words of Jesus in red.
11. If you have the misfortune to be in a train station with Aaron, go ahead of him. Then you don’t have to watch him be slow, stop randomly in the middle of walkways, and wonder which way is out when the sign saying “WAY OUT” is right in front of his face. Just go through the station and wait for him patiently outside.
12. If you want even passable service at restaurants, stay in America.
13. No matter how long you stay, there will be things you didn’t see that you wish you had. Apparently, you can never be done with a rich, interesting country like England, especially London. Samuel Johnson was right: “A man who is tired of London is tired of life.” For example, I never made it to Samuel Johnson’s house.
14. Pack half of what you think you need. In one week, your cleanliness standards will drop to the point that you won’t care if you are wearing dirty clothes. Plus, they have washing machines in England. They are small and inconvenient, but if you are worried about that, see #7.
15. 3 weeks is a long time to be away from your own beloved child, but some trips can be worth it. Even if you dread putting the sleeping child into her own bed for days after you get back and you actually think watching her do needlepoint is interesting. :)

My 2011

Here are some of the things that I did in 2011:

1. Traveled a bunch: Texas, SnowCon in Denver, Nashville, Mammoth Caves, Las Vegas, the Natchez Trace, my mom's house in Mississippi, and England.
2. Told my birth story on my blog and finally achieved peace about what happened.
3. Got snowed in!
4. Planned (with Jenn) and attended our awesome ATLOSCon.
5. Was witness when Livy learned to read!
6. Really found my place in my education and future career plans. I started work in the writing center, which will be my research focus, and started planning my thesis, a study of "tutoring for transfer." I also found that my teaching and tutoring work and research is deeply connected to the positive discipline work Jenn and I have been doing for years. Yay integration!
7. Did lots of podcasting and speaking engagements, also with Jenn.
8. Gave Crossfit a good try and decided it wasn't for me, at least not right now. Did lots of walking (and I mean lots) to train for the England trip. Fitness level definitely rose this year.
9. Grew a very productive vegetable garden in containers.
10. Had an amazing summer of leisure with Livy full of nothing but fun, learning, and adventures.
11. Accepted the apology of a person who deeply wronged me and hurt me badly and learned to let go of being angry.
12. Led an Ender's Game Reading Group for ATLOS.
13. Faced up to jealousy of a friend and let that go too. This has been a big year for letting go and for peace.
14. Read about 40 gazillion books. When I get home, I'll do my end of the year book stat post. Until then, here's my post about the books I read in the first half of the year.
15. Got better (but still not perfect, of course) at communicating effectively. I really practiced this year, and, as you can see from all the letting go and such, I had lots of chances to work on it.
16. Made lots of new friends at school and really felt, for the first time, that I am a part of that social community, including finding a great new friend and mentor who is farther along in the program than I am.
17. Deepened some existing friendships, grew apart from others, spent time with family, loved Aaron and Livy violently. 
18. Wrote a lot on this blog and at school. My writing, both narrative and academic, improved.
19. This blog morphed into a travel blog, pretty much. Don't know if it will stay that way, but this was a year of serious travel for me.

I am excited about starting 2012. It will be my first year to teach a freshman writing course, and we are already planning two trips for next year (a roadtrip to the Northwest this summer and (probably) Costa Rica over Christmas. Never in my life have I had such a great year or looked forward to such another one. My thirties are turning out to be my best decade ever, full of fun and love and getting emptier and emptier of the insecurities and worries of my twenties. Look for a resolution post for the new year in a day or two.

P.S. As I chose labels for this post, I had to choose nearly every label on my blog because it seems I spent the whole year all wrapped up in all my favorite values. No wonder it was such a good year. I can't even think of anything bad that happened in it! (Though Aaron says that doesn't mean it didn't happen, I live by Elizabeth Bennet's philosophy: "Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.") In the end, I had to delete all those labels because there were too many for Blogger to accept.

Sleeping in England, Dreaming of Sewanee

It's 6:30 in the morning here, and I am wide awake. My body hasn't adjusted yet to the new schedule, I guess. Aaron is still fast asleep in the other single bed, and I can hear his steady breathing. He must be in a deep sleep.

I dreamed tonight of Sewanee. Westminster Abbey must have done it. So much there was like All Saint's Chapel: the rose window, the fun of hunting for inscriptions on the walls, the immensity of the space, the vaults of the ceiling, the Evensong service.

Sewanee has always felt like a hub for the experiences in my life; every event and person that means anything to me seems tied back there by a string. And if a person or event isn't tied there, I knot it tightly on purpose. So don't be surprised if you are very dear to me and you find yourself dragged to Sewanee with some excuse or another. The real reason is that you are being knotted to that place and into my life forever.

It's strange to be on this much longed-for vacation and to wake up homesick, not for Meridian or for Atlanta, but for Sewanee.

Travel Plans: England it is! (I think)

So I am not completely settled on my Christmas travel plans, but I am kinda sorta close to being completely settled. Here's what I've been thinking.

We want to do England, Italy, and Greece/Turkey in the relatively near future. Of these trips, I think Livy would like England least. It would be the trip where we would mostly be looking at books (British Library), at pictures of people who wrote books (National Portrait Gallery), at places from books (Bath), at places where books got written (Keat's house at Hampstead Heath), at places where people who wrote books once lived (Straford-Upon-Avon), and at dead people who wrote books (Westminster Abbey). Livy doesn't even read books yet, and none of the ones she especially likes to hear have much to do with England. :)

However, I think she would like clambering over ruins and seeing the places where our favorite mythology came from (Greece and Rome). I think she would like Macchu Picchu (another place on our list), and I think Turkey would be exotic enough to make it fun for her to wander around in. I don't see her being amazed by London, which is a lot like any old city, unless you really like English books. :)

Plus, England on the train is kind of a romantic trip. There will be time to hold hands and stare out windows as English fields speed by. There will be time for reading poetry aloud on the way to the place where that poetry is rooted. There will be time for conversation and for peaceful hours of nothing to do. Livy would hate that crap. Aaron and I, on the other hand, would like it a lot.

So England seems the perfect trip to do now, when we have lots of time and no Livy accompanying us. Perhaps Macchu Picchu next summer? I'm not sure when it will be comfortable there temperature wise, but in my dream, it will be fairly cool next summer when Livy, Aaron, and I climb up. Then maybe Italy or Greece/Turkey next Christmas with Livy?

So anyway, I think it's England, and I'll know for sure when it sinks in just enough and feels just right.

How I Could Once Have Been "Shelley or the Idealist" by Ann Jellicoe

I just finished a play today called Shelley: or the Idealist, and I really enjoyed it. It is about the life of Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and judging from my relatively small amount of knowledge about his life, it was pretty accurate.

In the play, Shelley is portrayed as naive, thoughtless about other people's feelings, brilliant, devoted to his principles, and impulsive. I feel a lot of kinship to him and am ambivalent about that feeling.

I love that I am spontaneous, sensitive to the beauty of the world, idealistic, and open to new and world-changing ideas. I don't love so much that I am sometimes oblivious to the effects of my actions on other people and often jump too quickly into ideas and actions without thinking them through.

I was a lot more like Shelley when I was younger, and after reading the play, I am so happy that I have learned a lesson or two that will make my life turn out so much better than his did. It's hard to say if the changes came with Objectivism or with adulthood, as I acquired both at about the same time.

I learned not to use youth, poetry, passion, or the beauty of the wild, untamed, animal part of myself as an excuse to be irresponsible and callus. I learned to think about the consequences of my behavior to myself and to others. I learned to find poetry in a committed life, a life with responsibilities, a rooted life. I learned that Jane Austen had it right when she wrote, "Without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business" (Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24).

I cannot hate Shelley because so much of the misery he causes and endures comes from his naivete. But I can see that he gets the just reward of holding (and living) bad ideas and of refusing to take responsibility for his actions. And while I can empathize with him and remember when I was much like him, I am also glad to have grown up.

A Poem and A Question

I wrote this poem. I have no illusions that it's actually good, but the sentiments that poured out surprised me a little.

I folded socks today.
And as I did the dishes,
I remembered when I wrote verses
All about desire and the supernova of my feelings.
My insides haven’t changed, and as I did the dishes,
My belly churned with violence.
My skin prickled Bacchic all over,
While my hands folded socks.

Think this signals a midlife crisis?

Guilt About Traveling Without Livy

I am immersed in Mommy Guilt. For those of you who have experienced it, you know that it's worse than anything, even ginormous spiders. All good parents want to do what's best for their children, want to give them everything in our power, want to be a really great parent. And when I have doubts about a decision I am making about Livy, that's when I feel this awful pressing weight of guilt.

Here's the situation:

I am planning a 3 week trip to either England or to Turkey and Greece. Aaron gave me a trip for my 30th birthday, and we haven't ever gotten around to using it. This Christmas break is the time! Yippee! They thing is, I don't want to take Livy with us for the following reasons:

1. It will be romantic and awesome to go with just Aaron.

2. I don't think Livy will be very happy poking through museums, tons of ruins, literary sites for people she's never heard of, etc.

3. I don't really want to change my trip around to make it child-friendly.

4. It adds extra expense, which would have to come out of some other part of the trip budget.

The problem is that Livy, of course, wants to go. I worked it out with her, and we are planning a shorter birthday trip with her to Las Vegas, which I think she will absolutely love (and so will we, without changing the trip up too much) instead of a party. She isn't happy about missing out on our foreign trip, but that part is settled pretty well.

What isn't settled is my feeling that "good parents take their kids with them on foreign adventures." I feel like I am denying her a really neat homeschooling experience, and I am not meeting the ideal of the educated and well-traveled family.

My mom, correctly I think, tells me that it is impractical and a little ridiculous to even think about taking Livy on this trip. She would hate it at least a large part of the time, and we would not have as good a time. It would be a colossal waste of money, and there will be plenty of time for Livy to travel when she is a little older and when our interests align a little better.

But I still feel (at least part of me feels) that I am being a terrible mom. Shouldn't I want to take my darling with me on an adventure? Shouldn't I want to change the trip around and make it the kind of trip we could enjoy together? Shouldn't I think leaving her for three weeks is too much for me and especially over Christmas?

The truth is that I don't want to take her, don't want to change the trip, and think both of us will be fine (though we'll miss each other) for three weeks. So here are the things I am going to think about when unreasonable mommy guilt punches me in the stomach:

1. Normal child development does not require a trip to Europe. Livy can grow up to be smart, well-informed, and not provincial without taking this trip.

2. I did not go to Europe as an 8 year old, and it didn't turn me into a WWF fan whose favorite vacation is to a NASCAR race or to the world's biggest ball of twine.

3. Because Livy is almost 8, it is likely that she will have years and years to go to Europe after I am dead and buried. Now is my only freaking time.

4. It's not only okay, but good, to be selfish about pursuing my own values. I want to look at musty old books, portraits of people she's never heard of, and architecture she doesn't care about. I shouldn't have to give up those values.

5. Moms come in a lot of different packages. Just because I am not the kind that enjoys vacations more through the eyes of their children doesn't mean I am not a good one. I have many mom qualities that make me stellar, like my very high fun quotient, that aren't a part of the traditional mom image.

6. My relationship with Aaron is super important, and it's a good thing that I want to do things alone with him. Not only is it essential to my happiness, it's a rocking good example for Livy for when she has a romantic partner one day.

So, the bottom line is, I know I shouldn't feel guilty. I know I am doing what is best for me and not harmful to Livy. And yet the parenting ideal of taking the children everywhere and educating them with travel is hard for me to shake.

To Ron Weasley (On Why I Get You and Your Relationship with Harry Potter)

Dear Ron,

I'm writing this letter to tell you that you and I are alike and that I really get you. When I read about your adventures, I see myself in you, and I wanted you to know that I try to live up to your example. Keep reading, and you'll know what I mean.

You know how you are kinda famous, but Harry is really famous? I get that. You know how no matter how much you contribute to the fight against Voldemort, people just think of you as Harry's sidekick? I get that. You know how you worry about how you are always overlooked? I get that.

See, I have a famous best friend too. We are also business partners, just like you and Harry are partners in fighting Death Eaters. My friend Jenn is just as cool as your friend Harry. She always gives me credit for my contributions; she always treats me as an equal; she knows that we are so much better together than either is apart. None of the awful feeling of being in someone's shadow is her fault, anymore than it's Harry's fault that you don't get noticed so often.

It's not that Harry and Jenn don't deserve their fame, either. Harry could cast a corporeal patronus in his third year. And Jenn has an amazing blog where she works very hard to keep the thoughtful and helpful parenting posts chugging out. But we're pretty great, too, right? I mean, that chess game you played? How you handled the group when Harry was obsessed with the Deathly Hallows? And I am an awesome parent educator, with good classes, good podcasts, and some really new and innovative ideas about parenting and Objectivism.

But it's hard to be overlooked, isn't it? It's hard for you to hear about how Harry is the symbol of the anti-Voldemort movement, when you have shared in every anti-Voldemort activity. He gets called "The Chosen One," I know. Did you know someone once told me that Jenn was "the Objectivist parent?" You know how you didn't get invited to the Slug Club? Well, once a guy I just met socialized with me for an entire party, and at the end, he told me that he couldn't wait to meet Jenn because he had some parenting questions. One person asked me, "Are Jenn's kids the coolest you've ever met?" Umm, I have my own child, dude, and I am kind of partial to her, awesome though Jenn's kids might be.

Anyway, you can see that our positions are similar. What I really wanted to tell you was what I learned from watching you. You handle being right next to and being support to and working with someone really famous. Mostly, you handle it pretty well. I've learned from you that I just have to focus on my own values, as you focus on the mission to destroy Voldemort, and not worry so much about what people think. I've learned that when your friend becomes the youngest seeker in 100 years, you can be happy for him, even if you would like to be playing Quidditch too. You can celebrate someone else's accomplishments without always comparing them to your own.

I work hard on not being second-handed, on focusing on the product I am working on, rather than on how it is received.

I work hard on not being envious, on remembering that it isn't my friend who overlooks me. She is always my biggest cheerleader, and I want to be hers, even if she has bunches of others.

I work hard on doing the thing I actually want, instead of the thing that will get me a little more spotlight. For example, I really wanted to go to DragonCon over Labor Day weekend, but Jenn and I were asked to speak at ChicagOCon. I struggled with the decision because I worry that people will not miss me in our presentation and wonder why Jenn has a partner at all. I worry that I will be more overlooked if I miss my chance to be on stage. But I weighed my values, and I decided to do the thing I actually valued more and let the fame fall where it may.

Basically, I work hard at keeping the sane voices in my head, the ones who speak reality to me, talking louder than the voices of my insecurity. Just like when you were about to destroy that Horcrux, I fight the part of me that talks in Voldemort's voice. I choose not to hear the message that second-handedness and fear convey. Instead, I think of the love that my friend and I share, the amazing work we do together, my very real contributions to Objectivist parenting, and my other values.

When the Horcrux tells me that nobody would care if I never wrote or spoke about parenting again, I just stab it with a big ole Goblin-made sword. When the Horcrux tells me that no one even knows I exist or that Jenn and I figured it all out together, I just look around for the nearest basilisk fang. I shrug off the kind of insulting things people say with this thought: "Jenn IS just that awesome. She deserves every compliment. And I am that awesome, too. Even if folks on the internet don't know it, I know it. And so does Jenn and the other people I love. They know who I am and support me in my important work."

But I know the dark moments, the ones when second-handedness wins. I know just how you feel when you leave Harry and Hermione in the tent and disapparate. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to just quit. Why not let Jenn do the parenting education and focus on something else? Then I wouldn't have to feel overlooked; I'd not be doing anything to overlook. I've pulled back several times, tried to back away from our work, decided to just quit and stop feeling like this. But like you, I came back.

It's rationality that saves us both, Ron. We can use our minds to keep away the insecurities, to ignore the slights, to focus on important values, and to choose awesome companions in our work. And when Voldemort is dead and positive discipline has swept across Objectivism like fiendfyre, you and I will both know that we did good work and acheived our goals. And we will have Harry and Jenn to share in the pleasure of a job well done.

Your admirer,
Kelly

A Funny Livy Story

Yesterday, Aaron, Livy, and I had dinner with Jenn, Brendan, Ryan, Morgan, and Sean. When we were getting in the cars to leave, Jenn said, "Have fun in Nashville!" to me. (Aaron and I are doing a super fun getaway together this weekend!) Livy overheard this comment.

L: "Mom, what is Nashville?"

Me: "It's a city in Tennessee. We went there together a couple of times. Remember the place where we saw the Parthenon with that ginormous statue of Athena and went to the Opryland Hotel with the river inside?"

L: "Yes."

Me: "Well, Aaron and I are going there this weekend."

At this point, Livy started to cry. I thought, as you probably do, that Livy was sad because she wasn't going to get to go with us. I was preparing in my head to give a big rousing speech about how everyone needs time alone with people they love, about the time Livy and I spend alone, etc.

L: (Crying loudly.) "Why can't you ever go on vacation while I am at my Dad's house?"

Me: (Thoroughly confused.) "We are. Just Aaron and I are going to Nashville. You will be at your dad's the whole time."

L: (Looking much relieved.) "Oh, good. I just want to stay home forever. We take too many vacations. Let's just stay home from now on, okay?"

I'm posting this story so that my readers can get a better sense of who Livy is. She is, in many ways, the anti-Kelly. I want to go everywhere all the time. And if people do things without me, it takes all my restraint and good principles not to actively wish that they are having a terrible time. All the fun in the world should happen when I am present. :)

Livy, on the other hand, likes a more low-key life. She likes to be at home, to work on her projects, to watch shows she likes, to go to her friends' houses, to sleep in her own bed. And apparently, she couldn't care less if other people are off having fun without her, as long as she is content at home while they do it.

One more piece of evidence for me to use to understand the introverts in my life. Weird folk, but beloved, so I keep on trying. :)

There's no particular reason to post this photo, except it's extreme cuteness. Livy is in the middle, with two of her friends. The kid on the right is Morgan, Jenn's daughter. The one the left is Zara, an awesome-sauce kid from our homeschool co-op, whose fashion sense is a constant source of delight to me. If I was really secure enough to not care what people thought of me, I would dress just like Zara.

Relief

Now I know why Dumbledore is so lighthearted.

Second Chances

Tonight I embarked on an adventure that scares the hell out of me, more scary than any extreme sport. It's an adventure in second chances. A person who deeply wronged me, whom I never thought I would speak to again, who marked me deeply with pain, wants to apologize, and I said yes, setting off on an emotional adventure of the kind that shapes lives.

I don't know what to expect. I certainly can't forget or start fresh again. But I believe in "Yippee Mistakes." I proved to myself that I really believe it. I believe that people can change, and, though wrongs cannot be erased, I believe people can try to make amends and make some things right. This may not happen, but I believe in the possibility.

I learned some things about myself today. I am an essentially hopeful person. I am more like Professor X than like Magneto. I think that people can make mistakes and then learn to do things differently. I aspire to be like Dumbledore--to give people the chance to prove that they are no longer on the side of the dark magic, to believe that they can try to make things right. I may never want to give them the Defense Against the Dark Arts job (to trust them completely), but I can open myself to the possibility that they can use their free will to do the right thing. I can hope even for my enemies to choose to do right. I can wish that the potential I see in a person can come to fruition, even if we can never be friends again, even though that potential cannot erase the past. And I learned that I like this hopeful person that I am, that I don't want ever to be closed and decided and beyond the reach of the possibility of a changed life.

Science Is a Good Subject Too: A Life-Learner's Revelation

Regular readers of my blog will recognize that I am a ginormous geek, but my geekdom is pretty well confined to the humanities. I read classic literature, translate Latin and Greek, work on French and Spanish (once in a while), learn history, diagram sentences, peruse ancient rhetoric texts, write creative non-fiction, recite poetry, and think about linguistics. It's not that I don't like science and math; I went to a math and science magnet school for high school, for Jupiter's sake. It's just that they don't thrill me and fill up my daily life.

So, as Livy accompanies me on a romp through existence, her exposure to ideas and educational materials can be a little bit one-sided. Of just how one sided, I was unaware until recently.

As you know, I have been bemoaning her lack of academic interest and worrying about what it means and generally not living up to my standards of minding my own business about her interests. At least, I've been doing that in my head. I've still been good about not bothering her and bossing her into doing things she isn't interested in. But, as I was reminded on a trip to the local science museum, science is an academic subject. Who knew? :)

In the hands-on section of the museum, Livy did every single electricity project available, and she did them thoroughly. It took us about 45 minutes, during which her friends moved on to something else (unusual because she would ordinarily have followed them). When I saw how strong her interest was, I realized that I haven't been meeting her sciency needs.

She is an engineering type, I think. She likes to build things out of Legos and to figure out how things work on her own by tinkering. Math has always been a stronger interest for her than reading, and she loves to hear me read non-fiction books on animals, space, and fossils. I don't know how I got away from providing her with the option for science exploration, but I did. I guess it just doesn't come naturally to me, and so it fell out of our lives.

I've learned my lesson now. Since the museum, we have done tons of electricity experiments of our own (series and parallel circuits, resistors, LEDs, fuses, building an electromagnetic motor, and using switches). I checked out a bunch of books that I think she will like about a multitude of science topics, and we are considering a junior astronomy course at our beloved museum. Basically, I am not neglecting this whole interesting side of human knowledge as I provide her with materials and options for learning.

So, I'm taking a few new lessons from this experience:

1. Everyone is not like me, and I need to get out of my own head and into Livy's. I can't use my yardstick to measure everybody else.

2. Science is pretty fun, and I can expand my own life-learning journey by participating in Livy's.

3. The second I start to worry about Livy's progress, some new thing will come along to surprise and inspire me. I need to chill.

4. That key ingredient of life-learning, strewing the environment with cool stuff, requires me to get outside my own comfort zone of activities and materials.


For those of you living with science lovers: We've been using Snap Circuits to do electricity projects, and we LOVE them. The kit comes with millions of parts and a project book, and the snap in pieces are easier for Livy to manage than wires (though we are using those too). She can use the Snap Circuits much more independently. Have fun!

Ramblings on Memory, Sleep, Snatches, and Scallops

Good morning, and welcome to today's episode of "Random Stuff I Want to Tell You."

1. I cooked scallops yesterday, and they were awesome. I am kind of scared of cooking seafood, probably because I am new to it and it seems so complicated, but I am on a mission to add more seafood into my diet. Now is a good time because I can't cook Aaron anything he both likes and can eat, so I may as well please myself. So, I rinsed the scallops; put them in a pan; poured melted bacon grease over them; sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder; and broiled them for 8 minutes. They rocked. I ate them all.

2. This morning in my Roman rhetoric class, we discussed memory, one of the 5 canons that Roman rhetoricians considered necessary for the art. It is less necessary for us with widespread literacy and internet access, and we talked about whether it is necessary at all. Clearly we have to be able to remember things to carry out daily tasks, but we were talking more specifically about memorizing texts, lists, poems, rules for composition, etc.

My main reason for defending memorization is fun; I think it's good and useful to have a store of knowledge with which to entertain ourselves in the absence of more passive forms of entertainment. Many a car trip has been filled by trying to remember state capitols, songs about specific rivers, or naming cities along a certain interstate route. Poems are friends I can visit in my head on the bus or when I hike.

But, I am not sure how important memorization is outside of this reason, which is a purely optional value. It can certainly give you street cred as an expert, as one of my classmates pointed out. Are there any non-optional uses for memorization that I am not coming up with?

3. Last night, I snatched 55#. For those of you who know how to do snatches, that probably sounds light. For those of you who don't, you have no idea what I am talking about. So my audience for this comment may be only 4 people. But those 4 people should know that I SNATCHED 55#!!

4. I am so sleep deprived. I have to get up at 5:50 am, but I cannot seem to get to bed by 8:30 or 9! It's so hard to be done with my day that early. I go to Crossfit at either 6:30 or 7:30, depending on the day, and that isn't changeable. I got to class at 8 am down in Atlanta, and that isn't changeable. I would like to sometimes see Aaron in the evening, and that isn't changeable. Does anyone else manage with naps? I might see how working naps into my days would change my sleep schedule and my feeling of being not-so-well-rested.

Tribute to the Gilmore Girls

Tonight, I watched the last episode of the Gilmore Girls. I sobbed. I cried because, in that amazing way good TV has of making the unreal real, I felt that an era in my life, not just in Lorelai and Rory's, was ending. I felt that a girl I knew had grown into a woman and that a woman I loved was losing her child to adulthood.

I don't love the Gilmore Girls because they are paragons of Objectivist virtues or heroic in an epic way. In fact, half the time they make decisions that I think are wrong or stupid or just silly. I don't love them because they are smart and witty (though they are) or because they are beautiful (they are that too).

I love them because they represent a kind of relationship between parent and child that I crave for Livy and me. I want to be like Lorelai; I want to let Livy make her own decisions and mistakes and successes. I want to keep her close to me, knowing me and being known, and at the same time, let her go and be who she is. I want to be the place where she comes for meltdowns, the person that she relies upon when everything else is unreliable, and the sharer in her greatest triumphs.

And, though this part is much more out of my control, I want her to see me as a person, not just a mom. I want her to know that I make mistakes, to watch me living my values, to give me her opinions on my choices, and to be a part of the exciting era of my life that will come after her childhood. I want to teach her what she needs to know, but I also want to nurture a real relationship between us that will last even when we are equals.

Watching Rory leave Stars Hollow to hit the campaign trail made me ache for Lorelai and for me. I know that one day I will face a house and a daily life without Livy in it. When she goes, I want to know that we will miss each other, miss each other's company, not just the idea and familiarity of home. And when she goes, I want to have a career and love and a community like Lorelai, a life full of adventures and values, just as Livy will have, a life we can continue to share.

The greatest tribute that I can give to the Gilmore Girls is that it inspires me to be a better parent, to be more open, more communicative, more understanding, more nurturing, more fun, and to respect Livy's individuality.

My Worries and Balloon Animals

Lately, I have been a worry wort. I try to control it, but that's the thing about worrying - it's not really in my control. Mostly, I am a super chill mom to my life-learning daughter, but sometimes, I just snap and lose my mind. I always lose it in my own head and not out loud, so I don't think Livy is really aware of it. But it makes me miserable.

This latest worry fest is about reading, one of my worry triggers, as you can see here. Livy (at age 7) has finally learned to read kind of (three letter words and such), but she shows pretty much zero interest in getting any better at it. I know that she is only 7 and that she would be starting the second half of her first grade year right now. I know that she reads at a level that is common for first graders.

But I am also me. I am the person who learned to read early enough to not remember it. I am the person who read adult novels in elementary school. I am the person whose entire life revolves, and has always revolved, around books and the act of reading.

But Livy is not me. She may love to read one day, or she may not. Right now, she doesn't really have any reason to improve her reading. What does a 7 year old really NEED to read? Basically, I should to chill out. She has plenty of time to improve her reading, and like everything she has ever done, I feel sure she will improve it suddenly when it seems worthwhile to her. She's one of those people who does nothing without a DARN GOOD REASON.

Why is it so hard for me to relax? I'm sure it is partly my own academic leanings, but I also think that as she gets older, I feel a lot more external pressure about reading. Will people treat her badly at chess class? Will my family worry about her future? Well, screw them. Not really, I mean, I like the people at chess class and I love my family, but their worries or opinions have never guided my interactions with Livy. I shouldn't let them now. I wouldn't force her into trendy clothes to avoid teasing, so I won't force her into reading. I wouldn't punish her to please my family, so I won't force her into reading for them either.

I also need to remember that SHE WILL LEARN TO READ. Why would she not? She isn't a masochist; she'll be able to see how valuable and useful it is and want that value for her life. She isn't cognitively challenged; she'll learn it fast enough when she wants to. She isn't growing up in a house without books and text; she'll learn from us that reading is a part of adult life. I need to be strong in my convictions and not let irrational worries inside me or irrational worries from others make me shaky.

So today, when Livy has spent another 3 hours (in addition to the 3 or 4 last night) making balloon animals, I am going to take a deep breath and enjoy that process. She is engaged in learning something in which she finds value, and that has to be good enough for me. Maybe this will be the interest that drives her into the library, but if not, it's value is not diminshed.

For a post that helped to snap me out of my worrying streak and reevaluate, look at Elisheva's post about her teenage son's educational and career choices. It helped me to remember that Livy does not have to do what I do to be happy and virtuous.

My Birth Story, Told For the First Time After Seven Years

Tonight, I feel ready to open up a pocket of pain that has been buried and almost untouched in me for 7 years. I don't understand why it hurts like it does or why similar experiences don't scar other people as they have scarred me, but I am ready to write it finally. I sit here, crying, trying to justify the public nature of this confession, and all I can say is that it feels right. Maybe I can never be free of this until I pour it all out, shine a bright light on it, and take away its power by talking about it and making it commonplace to think of it.

I'm talking about Livy's birth story, my birth story, and that really is the start of it. In my mind, her birth was not just the time when she emerged into the world; it was the time when I would emerge into a new role as a mother and a grown up woman. It was a rite of passage, not just a medical event, and when it went wrong, somehow I didn't get what I needed, though Livy ended up okay.

It has been so long that I forgotten a lot of the details. The things I remember are probably the most important for the telling anyway.

I had planned a homebirth. This was the easiest choice in the world. I was working as an apprentice midwife when I got pregnant, and though I stopped attending births, I was really passionate and committed to the idea that homebirth was best for uncomplicated pregnancies. I still am.

My pregnancy was really uncomplicated. In fact, I have never felt better in my life. My blood pressure was perfect; I slept 10 hours every night until Livy was born; and I didn't have aches and pains or morning-sickness. The only thing was, Livy was really late. When we got to 43 weeks, the midwives started to worry a little. I know that the chances for complications rises at 42 weeks, and I can understand their concern.

They offered me a chance to go to the doctor and get a stress test ultrasound to see that everything was alright and the placenta was still functioning well. The other option was to use herbs (blue and black cohosh) and castor oil to try to induce labor. I should have done the stress test. Once Livy was born, we found that her placenta and the amount of vernix on her skin showed that she was devoloped like a 40 week old baby. Why didn't I do the stress test? I was just so sick of being 43 weeks pregnant in GA in September. I should have done the stress test.

Instead, I took the herbs (but not the castor oil) and walked and walked and walked. I walked too much. Even though I knew intellectually how much energy it takes to birth a baby, I was so focused on getting her to come, I didn't rest enough.

The herbs and walking worked, and I went into labor. The midwives came when the contractions got closer, and labor was good. Truly, it was. It didn't hurt too much, and I was in that fog where I didn't feel the passage of time. I remember this part of the birth as a happy, difficult, and right kind of time.

After about 30 ours, my labor kind of halted. I got in the fishy pool and soaked in the warm water, and the contractions started to come less frequently. Why didn't I let it be? Why didn't I just relax in the pool and remember that babies are born when they are born? But I didn't. The midwives got me walking again, and I just wanted Livy to get born. I was sick of waiting. Once it started, I just wanted it to finish and to have my baby with me.

By 36 hours, I was worn out. I wasn't able to eat or lie down between contractions. I could only walk and walk and walk and kneel and squat and walk and walk and walk. I was so tired, and I felt harried by the contractions like I couldn't find a place or a time to sit and rest. I wondered if I was in transition, and that gave me hope. I wasn't in transition I learned later.

Finally, when I was too tired to keep going and I just stood in the shower and cried, the midwives suggested we transport to the hospital. They assured me that it wasn't an emergency, but they thought that I needed an epidural and a nap and that they baby would come after that.

I was devastated and terribly afraid. But I was SO tired and so weak from lack of food. We drove to the hospital in our own car, and my ex made calls to work to say he would be out a few days while on the inside I was breaking apart. I remember that when a contraction hit, I wanted the car to explode so that I could only be free of it. I remember eating pineapple, and I have hated it ever since. It tastes like disappointment and misery.

At the hospital, they wanted me to fill out forms and to sign things, and I wanted to scream and rip the throats out of everyone. How could they talk to me like this was a normal thing, when I was seeing all my plans and dreams from Livy's birth shattering in front of me?

The doctor gave me a rough vaginal exam that I was not ready for and joked that "this one may have to come out of the sunroof." He knew I was a homebirth mom; he worked with homebirth moms. There was no excuse for his levity. If I saw him now and recognized him, I would gladly hit him in the face. I would be happy to watch his nose bleed and know that I had paid him back in some small way for his joke when I was terrified and vulnerable. Nothing so invasive or insensitive has ever been said to me in my whole life.

The midwives came with me to the hospital, and because of them, I didn't have a c-section. They talked with the doctor and encouraged him to try an epidural and pitocin first. After I got the epidural, I slept for 4 hours, the pitocin working on me the whole time. After that my labor really picked up.

I don't remember much from the hospital. I remember that the doctor put his hand on my perineum while I was pushing to prevent tearing, and I wasn't sure if his hand was in my vagina, my anus, or outside of me. It was like I was right side out and inside out at once, and I couldn't tell what was inside and what was outside. I saw Livy's dark hair in the mirror when she crowned, and I cried.

When she was born, there was meconium on her. It was clearly old meconium, even I could see that, but they insisted that there was danger from aspiration. They suctioned her throat and wiped her off before I could hold her. I was rabid with desire to hold her and fear for what was happening to her. The 6 feet between us was like a mile of pain.

She didn't have to be without us, though. She stayed in the same room, and David and I never had to take our eyes off of her. I delivered the placenta, while they washed her. I insisted they not soap her, and though the nurse clearly thought I was an idiot, they didn't. I had signed waivers refusing vaccines and eye drops and Vit K, and I had to say it again, but she didn't get any of those things.

They wouldn't let me hold the placenta. It may seem strange, but I am crying harder as I write that. What right had they to deny me? It was mine. I insisted that they let me look at it, and they did. It was red and healthy and completely free of calcifications. It was a young placenta. All this had been for nothing. She was not overdue; she took a long time to cook. I didn't get to take it home. I didn't get to plant it in my garden or trace with my hands the blood vessels that had connected us for so long.

The hospital staff woke us up all the time. We would get to sleep, and they would wake us to take my blood pressure. They would move her to a crib, away from my arms. When David fell asleep with her on his chest, they woke them and moved her. We couldn't leave the hospital for two days because I hadn't had a strep test. I guess they were afraid if she got strep, I was too stupid to feel a fever or look for the other signs.

They gave us formula and formula coupons, but I threw them all in the trash. Lactation consultants came, and Livy latched on. We would not understand the breastfeeding problems that would come for a week or two still. I often wonder (and so did the lactation consultants) whether it was the suctioning that made her refuse to take the nipple far into her mouth for so long.

I feel guilty. It's my fault that the birth went this way. I knew better; I knew that babies come very late sometimes and that I should let things take their course. I wasn't patient and I didn't stand up for myself and for Livy and that's why I still hurt after all these years.

I feel guilty for feeling guilty. My friend who had an emergency c-section and whose baby had a NICU stay doesn't feel like this. Other moms have babies that die. Some women can't get pregnant at all or have babies with major health problems. What right do I have to ache and to rip apart when Livy is fine and we are happy together?

How can I ever let this go? I will never have another baby, never have another birth. How can I accept that this one, this horrible twisting of my hopes, is the one birth I will have in my entire life. How can I forgive myself for causing all this pain, for (maybe) causing the breastfeeding troubles that blackened our first 14 months together, for causing, or at least contributing to, the miserable post-partum depression that I lived through? Will I ever read Mothering Magazine again without pulling back from my own thoughts in fear? How can I make this dragging regret a part of the past instead of a part of the present?

I want to share something with you, in the spirit of full disclosure.



This picture symbolizes for me how sterile and cold her birth was. She is lying on a table, not held, not warm, just lying there. She is being touched, not by human skin, but by latex gloves, and they are worn by a stranger. It makes me feel nauseated to look at it. She should have been on my chest, still bloody but warm and loved. More desired than clean. Resting her head on my breast, smelling colostrum. My hands should have been on her, not empty, not balled up with the fingernails digging into the palms with the restraint it took not to rip her from these gloved hands. This picture should have been different.