a poem

F*** This Day

A poem

the ketchup bottle wheezes with the remnant juices of tomato paste

I shake and twist in futility

futility

work is the equivalent to lugging boulders across a field

only to lug them back across

in pointless

mindless

rhythm

Go ahead, take my dignity with my money

swallow it, burn it,

distribute it in the impotent

construction of the city streets

quarantine me 

in the confines

of futility.

--signed, one in a dark moment

Reflection on an apopthegm #142 by F. Nietzsche

It's a disturbing and wonderful thing to come across something that you wrote  nearly ten years ago. Not only can you not recall writing it but HOW could you possibly find something you wrote genuinely insightful? I'm actually not sure if I actually wrote this, but I found it in a notebook from 2006.

In any case, here it is:

Reflection on Nietzsche's apopthegm #142, which translates as, "In true love, it is the soul that covers/encases the body."

So, in true love the person is capable of overcoming the proclivities of human appetite in favor of a higher goal, which is wanting what is the most Good for the other person, yourself, and both together. The reason why you touch is not just to feel, but to experience each other fully. The reason why the beloved is beautiful despite imperfection is because the soul, who he is and who he could be, is born on the exterior. The "soul on the outside" means truth, which leads quickly to trust in love. When you bear the truth and are not rejected there is true love. One cannot love that which is hidden, so true love permits nothing to be hidden if it is to be total.

Book on Review: A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting by Hara Estroff Marano

I recently (finally) finished this book, as was recommended to me by Dr. John Gartner after I contacted him with regard to his article entitled "Childolotry" published in Psychology Today.

It must be mentioned to my most assured discredit that I am not a parent. I realize fully that a brief stint of binge watching the British reality television series SuperNanny does not grant me permission to teach parents about what they are doing wrong. My experience and perspective are from the outside as a teacher and administrator of children's extracurricular activities, and before that as a babysitter. This is where I first began my novice observation of different parenting styles and how it affected the children, For me, "Childolotry " and  A Nation of Wimps were the first explanations I read describing behavior and patterns that I have been observing for several years: unhappy marriages, tired parents of unmanageable children, high anxiety levels and unrealistic goals, but also examples of happy homes and families, developmentally healthy children, and adults who, while devoted and loving, take time as couples or even as singles to do things they enjoy. 

A Nation of Wimps confirmed what I believed already: that over-parenting is something of an epidemic particularly among the most affluent, and left unchecked results in the opposite of the goal of parenting: weak-minded, anxiety-ridden adolescents (I leave it here because by definition, adolescence only ends when a defined sense of self is achieved: article coming soon "Quarter life crisis") These parents, I realized, are not evil or malicious, or abusive because they despise their children (although I would characterize some of their behavior as emotionally or psychologically abusive), they are driven by fear and a low or nonexistent sense of self. How can they allow their children to develop a self when the parents are still struggling to find their own? 

The happy families that I know, while very, very different in their structures and parenting choices, all have one thing in common: the adults exercise the virtue of self-care, both for themselves individually and for their relationships. They make choices and do things for the relationship, and for the family, and for the children, and for themselves.  And by the way, I don't mean the desperate and questionable examples of "ladies night" and "guys night,"which are escapism at best, desperation at worst and leave the individuals empty and less capable as contributing members of their families.

Disjointed thoughts on the book:

Effective teachers and mentors should relieve the psychological burden on parents feeling that they alone are competent enough and/or care enough to parent and protect their children. It is important that parents know that I, as the teacher of their child, am also invested what kind of person their child turns out to be, not just how far their can turn out their feet, or how quickly they progress to learning Mozart sonatas.  As teachers, we must recognize our role in this way and honor that, even if society doesn't, ours is one of the most important and influential in a child's life. 

Ineffective teachers and school administrations that demand that parents be involved to the point of doing homework with their kids every night is contributing to parent obsessiveness, and as Ms. Estroff points out, is crippling the students, "...undermining a sense of self-efficacy while promoting self-preoccupation." (Estroff 6)

One question:

A Nation of Wimps appears to support an assumption held by both parents and children that parents have nothing to offer their children in terms of navigating the world because of the speed of technological advances. Therefore, invasive parenting is a byproduct of the intense anxiety caused by internal resistance to the reality of parental impotence. My questions: when did technology become the indicator of relevance? Has this always been the case and is this assumption truly valid?

         I think it is valid only in as much as the definitions of one, education, and two, happiness, have been narrowed and shaved to fit a microbox of fear and consumerism. If technology and the consumption of that technology is to be the purpose and means by which we pursue "success" through which we gain "happiness" (whatever that means), then yes, parents as immigrants to the age of technology have little to offer their descendants is native citizens of this age.

       So maybe it is not a question of parental relevance, but rather a question of whether the most commonly held belief system* is one that should be followed, and relevance in that system is not something to work towards.

*When I say belief system, I do not necessarily mean one that has been purposefully adopted. 

When people fail to develop a personal ethic comprised of mature convictions centered and supported by a secure sense of self, they tend to default to the most commonly held ethical belief system. At present, that would be the consumer ethic. 

February 13th--a glimpse into a modern marriage

     I got a job working for a company that organizes people's lives. Well, their stuff. Moving and packing, downsizing and up-sizing. Newly weds and squabbling adult children of deceased parents. Even though I only get a glimpse, people and their things, their precious things, tell surprising stories.

      For two days this week, I spent 16 hours packing and later unpacking the lives of a newly wed couple, married less than a year. Her things were everywhere: her old yearbooks and literary journals, pictures of her debut and reign as a Mardi Gras queen, 3 closets of clothes, artwork of cute puppys, photos of her parents and grand parents. He was practically non-existent: 1 small closet of clothes, 15 ps3 games, a few posters, a set of decorative samurai swords, and a box of ammunition. As I was packing, I kept wondering about how they got together, what had they seen in each other. This was just a starter house anyway. Sorting and packing up their now tandem single lives ultimately meant very little. Moving into their new home would be akin to moving from a room with two twin beds pushed together into a room with a true king size. The new home would be the true evidence of their collective lives, the place of they, them, us, where referring to oneself more often comes out as the royal We. 

     Unpacking their new house, as it turned out, was very much like a grown up version of moving her into a new dorm room. Now everything would be done according to her specifications, and the last remnants of him were promptly and flippantly even jokingly banished to the garage. I was told to "lose" things that belonged to him because they were so "horrible." She bounced and bubbled between the rooms, showing off her numerous keepsakes and photos, bursting with the pride of a woman who has won at life: well educated and married well (clearly by the size and location of her new house) to a man with no clear will of his own easily overwhelmed by the strength and presence of a New Orleans princess. She gushed over sweet things that he had done for her during their courtship in anecdotes around various art or trinkets she kept in places of honor while he moped sullenly around. 

     Is this marriage? I wonder if this man, merely in his 30's, feels himself being erased by a woman of exceptional breeding and unscrupulous training as a southern woman-wife. Or, will he wake up one day in his 50s, after their children are grown and realize that he doesn't remember who he is? Does she see that she is erasing him? Or, does she see her direction as a positive, that he needs her, and that she is helping him to become better? What becomes of a couple in which one person is assumed into the other? 

        These are the questions I have as I carefully stack her initialed picnic plates and monogrammed towels, looking out the window at his lonely box of boyhood, slouched at the back of the garage.

        

hunting for plants

Hunting to identify plants is the way in which I plan to defy the statistic that Americans will not spend more than 5 minutes on a problem before giving up.
Introducing, the  Podocarpus Macrophyllus--welcome to my moleskin list of plants to remember!

what is change that simply turns the table

How can I change
if I don't feel
How can I feel
and not change
what change?
what is change that simply turns the table,
change that renames the enemy
but does not stop the war
when I have done evil
must evil be done to me
in order to satisfy the gods of justice
the gods of vindication
the gods of deliverance
and when the gods of justice are satisfied
by my suffering
will they not yet again return hungry
for the justice for evil done to me?
when I hate you hating me
and you hate me hating you
what solution is there
but ceasefire
can we not agree
can we not be unified
by the hatred
of hatred
or are we cycling forever
in homage to our gods
our love of hatred
our love of war
our love of rightness

The Opposite of a Kiss

A proper kiss is a breeze that will stir the leaves resting on the forest floor of my heart
that have long since been raked into a pile, soaked by rain waters, 
layered and withered, slowly becoming a part of the ground on which they rest. A proper kiss will barrel through the pile of leaves like a child, scattering the dry skeletal fingers of the trees from which they fell, giving them new life as colorful flying things in the wind, only resting when at long last the child falls exhilarated and peaceful into their soft piles again.

Purposeful silence. The silence that resounds between two people with everything not said between them. The silence that fills with everything that could be said, inflated by imagination, sharpened by self indulgence and a desperate desire to say the thing that will end all argument, but gagged by the fear of discovery of the truth, and somehow the fear of injury.

For in silence, there is power without vulnerability. This is the opposite of a kiss.

Innocence and bubble bursting

We all start as innocents. Some of us grow up faster than others. Some of our parents can maintain our world-shield for longer than others, but everyone's bubble is burst eventually. The bubble bursting moment is that moment when a person experiences something so jarring to the narrative of his or her life that from that point on the color of the world is different. To see the world for the first time outside the tint of the bubble of expectations of what happens in life, what happens to me, is to lose my innocence. I wise person might say that this is the point when we can finally begin to know the world and embark on the road to wisdom. It's the moment that we recognize the brevity and preciousness of life and have the opportunity to start realizing our power and potential. The pain of the loss of our innocence is the birthing pain that propels us into the meaningfulness of real experience which can lead to better understanding.of ourselves and others. I would say, the opposite of wisdom is the attempt to live as if still inside the bubble, or worse, create another one. A lie bubble. A lie bubble that lets the one inside believe that they can still grow and grow wiser without honestly confronting the pain of reality. But there is only one real innocence. Like a child in the womb, we are not made to return there once it is our time to be born. Once you know the outside, you know it and you are a part of it.
     
Here are some examples of attempting to live inside a lie bubble or, just imagine your 18-year-old self talking:
     
     "I am not in a relationship because no one is good enough."

     "I am the only person who knows whats best for my child."

     "The reason why my relationship is falling apart is because we don't have a ________(house,car, baby...)"

     "Its important that I have everything settled before I do what I really want to do."

     "When I have (or when my child has) _______(relationship, job, car, etc...) I will be happy and find fulfillment."

   
  Here are some examples of living outside the bubble:

   "I am not in a relationship because I am not ready to be in a relationship."

   "Other people (teachers, friends, family) make important contributions to my child's formation and education."

    "The reason why my relationship is falling apart is because we don't communicate clearly and/or manage our expectations for each other."

   "Now is the only time to do what I really want to do."

   "I have many resources for emotional strength and my sense of fulfillment is not contingent on any one person or thing."



 

writing prompt #1 What Five Things Did You Love The Most When You Were Six Years Old?

My childhood was full of happiness, fairytales, wishes, dreams. By number three, I forgot that I was only supposed to write 5 things that I loved and continued to 6. I might have to do a "Part 2" at some point.


1. I loved how my parents packed my lunch for school. Mom would write little notes or draw pictures or stars, smiley faces, and hearts XOXO on my ziplock bags. Looking back now, I think about how different my lunch usually looked compared to my classmates' lunches: wheat bread on my sandwich, fruit juice, and a cloth napkin.

2. I loved jean mini skirts and my frilly white dress with candy stripes on the sleeves and skirts. When I wore the white dress I felt like I was the mot beautiful thing in the world. I remember wearing it while dancing around in our garage, bouncing off and on my dad's home-made workout bench.

3. I loved the game "Oh Chicken." This is a game my sister and I made up that involved repeatedly standing on one arm of the couch and falling backwards intoning, "oooooooooohhhhh" while falling and  "CHICKEN!" when our backs made contact with the couch cushions. My sister and I played our game until we grew too tall to fall so trustingly onto our couch without the fear of hitting the backs of our heads on the other arm.

4. I loved Bond Crosby. He sat across from me in Mrs. Swank's 1st grade class. He had a military crew cut and played pencil hockey with me . I remember constantly trying to reconcile that his name wasn't "Bill Cosby," or "James Bond."

5. I loved when my friend Elizabeth's mom would make the car dance. Miss Betsy would pick us up from gymnastics, or brownies, or school and on the way home would drive maniacally down our neighborhood streets, one hand gripped on the steering wheel, moving it as if she were wiping it down, the other waiving convincingly in the air. The car jerked left-right-left-right to the beats Ace of Base's "The Sign,"  or Gloria Estefan's "Conga." Elizabeth and I shrieked and laughed and demanded that she admit that it was her, not the car that was dancing, which Mrs Betsy of course denied and simply switched driving hands to waive the other frantically out the drivers' side window.

6. I loved singing and, therefore, the Little Mermaid. I loved that my mom made me a Little Mermaid Costume for Halloween. It was a little purple bandeau, and a long, straight, green skirt with a little stuffed fin at the end. It was a dream came true, despite being made to wear a white turtle neck underneath my purple bandeau because it was cold. How dare my parents ruin the illusion of me being an actual mermaid! I've since given myself hypothermia for the sake of a costume looking cool. I had good parents with better sense than I had.

empathy and teaching

     I recently read a quote that declared empathy "an act of imagination," and a necessary skill to produce great creative writing; imagining oneself as another person in a given scenario. I would also add that empathy, and therefore imagination, is key to being a great teacher. If a teacher can imagine him or herself as that child or teenager they are trying to reach, I think it is much easier to connect and to figure out the words and methods that will reach that particular student. Imagine yourself as a 10 year old who is smart, hyper active, lives in a fairy land, and imagines herself as the center of the universe. Imagine yourself as a 13year old terrified of the ultimate disgrace: being uncool in middle school. Imagine yourself as an 18 year old who is responsible beyond her years, with the ability to shoot daggers out of her eyes, with absolutely no qualms about making a fuss about getting her way. In someways, we've all been each of these kids at one point or another.
If I can see myself in every student, I can reach every student.

Read, Swim, Garden: Invitation to comment on a couple of ideas

These are some ideas I've been thinking about, but have yet to take the time to flesh out in any readable form.

What would change in New Orleans if every citizen could read, swim, and grow a garden?

How would teaching people how to garden change a community? What steps could be taken to begin this process?

How would cultivating a healthy, integrated relationship with water change the lives of people in New Orleans and the city as a whole? Where should we start making changes?

A book I'm writing in my head:
How Orleans parish could thrive out from under the thumb of corporate America.

I had to write these ideas down so that I can come back to them later. They are part of my effort to be a part of what could potentially be a cultural change that is unique to New Orleans a (literally) steaming hot bed of new ideas and opportunities waiting to be had.

Intelligent, optimistic members of the community, unite!!

High School Commencement speeches

I attended a graduation ceremony this evening for Archbishop Chappell High School, an all-girls Catholic school in Metairie. It was everything that one would expect a private school graduation to be: the graduates walking in and out to the brother school band playing Pomp an Circumstance, opening prayers, the shining expectant faces of the girls who already know they will be the recipients of a number of academic awards, the eye rolls of the slackers who secretly wish in a way that they, too, were receiving accolades, the awkwardness, the unbalanced walking in heels as if for the first time across the stage and with great uncertainty up and down stairs, and of course speeches. Speeches meant to send of this fresh set of scholars into the realm of the real, of auspicious beginnings.

During each speech, I could not help but feel the faint sensation of nausea, and the desire to stand up in protest: Stop this celebration of mediocrity! Stop selling lies! Cease the semantics and cliched well-wishes! Granted, there were some good quotes selected, but even so I found myself inserting my own commencement speech:

The Valedictorian implores her classmates, "Never doubt yourself..." blah blah blah fulfill your dreams blah blah blah God will provide.... I say to the class of 2014 PLEASE! DOUBT YOURSELVES. Think that you may be wrong. Think that the way you see things may not be the only way, or even the right way.  Think that you don't have it all together. Think that other people are much smarter than you, much more talented than you. Think that everything you hold to be true could be turned upside down, sideways, and inside out. Doubt that you understand things. Doubt that your interpretation of what you hear and read and see corresponds with reality. Doubt that other people care about you knowing the truth. Doubt that you are smart. Doubt that you have faith. Doubt the meaning and reason behind your every action. Doubt that anything is about you. (Nothing is ever about you.)

And then once you have doubted, once you have broken down everything, rebuild.
Rebuild with the Real.

The world is full of people who think they are God's gift to humanity, that They are the chosen few. I saw, they are a chosen few who spend too much energy thinking about who they were chosen and how special they are. Stop dwelling on being chosen and work. If you can learn to live in a way that allows for more humility and less narcissism, the world will be better. Remember: The finch in the bush is the center of its own universe.

The valedictorian said to her class, "a little work can go a long way towards success." But let me clarify, my dear class of 2014 who has never really worked. Work harder than you have for anything else, but don't work for money. Work for relationships. Work to see things and people more clearly. Work to understand the world more fully. Work to create. Work to smile. Work to appreciate things. Work for balance. Work for meaning.

Mean things. TURN OFF THE POP STATION and Listen to music that tells a story. Listen to a radio play. Listen to a book. Listen to nothing. TURN OFF The REAL HOUSEWIVES and watch Stephen Hawking's mini series How the Universe Works.

Mean things.

No professor will stand over you to make sure you read,  So, read for pleasure, read for inspiration, and read to know that you were not the first person to think of something important. Read to know things. Read so that you have something to say that means something.

Finally, the one virtue that I could wish upon any graduate, or any person for that matter is courage. It takes ultimate courage to stand and face yourself. It takes courage to take responsibility for mistakes and failure and selfish or disordered motivation. See your own story so that you might get a glimpse of someone else's story. Never overestimate your vision of the truth. You may see just a pinhole of what IS, and yet you can accomplish infinite goodness if you would only know what you see and see what you know.

We are a speck on a speck on a speck, but we are also an expanding universe Capable of greatness in the tiniest most insignificant of moments. Infinity works in both directions.

I leave you, class of 2014, with Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of success.

To laugh

                                                                      often and much,

to win respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others;

to leave the world a bit better

whether by a healthy child,

a garden patch, or a

redeemed social condition;

to know even one life

has breathed easier

because you have lived.This is to have succeeded.

Developmental psychology: the adolescent brain

Had a thought while reading up on the developmental process of the adolescent/teen brain. According to the text, due to the faster development of the amygdala coinciding with a slower development of the frontal cortex, teens paradoxically overestimate the riskiness of life AND underestimate the application of that risk to their own lives. So, In other words, while teens may hold a perspective that the world is more dangerous than it is, they also believe themselves immune, which would account for higher instances of risky (stupid) decisions and behavior among teens, some of which are fatal.  Binge drinking, girls walking home alone at 3 am, drunk driving, indulging in cocktail of recreational drugs the night before an exam...

ok, so this we know...

Second bit of information:
According to one study looking at how adults and teens were able to interpret emotions via facial expressions, results showed that teens are more likely to misinterpret the emotional facial expression in another than adults.

So--the highly emotional, moody, dramatic, angsty teen, the one who feels everything is less able to identify emotions in other people.
This would account, I suppose for the fact that teens rarely know what they themselves are feeling well enough to articulate it to their parents, teachers or even friends.

Would this less developed ability to interpret emotional expression fully have something to do also with teens tendency to indulge in behaviors that resulted in short term happiness, even at great risk whether emotional or physical? ---I'm happy and therefore I will continue to feel this happiness as if it will never end...imagine first love and first heartbreak. They would intellectually know that it hurts to go through a break up, but they haven't experienced a great pain before so they wouldn't be able to interpret it properly as a risk. Thus--diving in head first.

 Is the later maturation of the frontal cortext, which results in adults' superior judgement of emotional expression, possibly influenced by the results of said risky behavior in the years before? (i.e. environment affecting biological development) Can our brain actually become hard wired to make judgements that best protect us from experiencing certain pain or trauma again?

These are questions I have...

once upon personality-type revelation

     I drove in circles for nearly 45 minutes in search of the perfect coffee shop experience. coffee that is actually good (this narrows the field dramatically even in a town like New Orleans) Not too crowded, not too hipster, not too commercial. When I finally realized how long I'd been driving, and how many different directions I'd turned, "maybe this place, maybe I'll go downtown..or no maybe way uptown..." I settled on the Village Coffee and Tea Co. on Jefferson and Freret: decent coffee, poor service, but quietly busy enough with other people doing more important things that I can feed off their energy, find something important to do. and perhaps most people are not doing anything of any particular importance, but they, too, are feeding off the energy of expectation of this small cross section of coffee addicts, and thus becoming more productive.  Now that's what I call reciprocity.
     I'm an INFJ, according to Ms. Katherine Cook Briggs, and Ms. Isabel Briggs Myers. I'm an outgoing introvert, with a knack for counseling other people, and the pleasurable burden of usually being right with just enough insecurity to keep me from trusting my own judgement. It's on this fine, brisk Sunday that I've hit my maximum of alone-in-my-house time, and am filling my pail with alone-with-other-people-around time. Thus, the coffee shop excursion.

Getting what you want

Is it possible to get what you really, deep down want out of life, even if you aren't entirely sure what that is..

I only made it part of the way through that book-made-documentary " The Secret" because I felt foolish watching it. So, I can get everything I want simply by willing it to myself?  As a young Catholic, people used to tell me that I just needed to pray for God to help me to get what I needed. Maybe the opposing theories, one of total self-centered power, the other of powerlessness in the face of the will of God, have created a perfect mental storm leaving cynical apathy in its wake. Or maybe the Catholics have it right and God just simply says no quite a lot. I imagine God--a terrible imagination--shaking his head at me in condescension, "Poor little thing. She never asks the right questions." Alas, am I destined for the divine head-pat for ever? I suppose I shake my fist at the sky far too many times a day to be taken seriously.  

       I think the only thing more annoying than this abysmal communication gap between me and the divine universe is the self-awareness vacuum I encounter on a daily basis. It is said that we despise most in others what we see in ourselves, and I think that's true. And worse, we condemn others for that which we refuse to see in ourselves. And we are ALL capable of seeing ourselves for who we really are, excepting perhaps those with certain documented mental illness. If you think otherwise, I recommend Von Trier's rather disturbing movie, "Dogville." (In fact, if you are due for a soul shaking--and if you think you aren't than you most definitely are--I also recommend Breaking Waves and Melancholia. )

People are amazing--horrible, wonderful, powerful--and I guess this is also a premise behind things like "The Secret," and even in Christian teachings. The first thing we do that makes us worse, less human, is surrender our power.  (I can't help it. I can't change because...) The second, likely simultaneously with the first, is we fear knowledge---knowledge of self and knowledge of another--and blithely ignore the consequences.

Maybe the first step in getting what we want, or even merging with we need with what we want is making a pattern change in these two areas...

Let's WAKE UP, people.