Thursday, December 31, 2009

Overheard: Vertigo

Vertigo is not the fear of falling. It is the fear of wanting to fall.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Giving

I was standing in line at one of the most frantic toy stores in the world - the one that is always out of what you came to buy, even if you're going in August, even if what you want has nothing to do with Christmas - and I was kicking myself for being there for a couple of reasons:

#1 Rich and I decided that we would make our Christmas gifts this year which we are frantically currently doing. Why, then, were we at the toy store, annoyed, trying to find presents for our son and the nieces and nephews in our family? The excuses ranged from, "Well, kids don't understand the gesture of a handmade gift. They want toys! And it's Christmas, for the love of God! (Yes, go ahead and laugh at the irony.) It takes a level of maturity to understand that 'I love and value you' does not have to mean 'store bought and popular'," to "while noting that consumerism is way out of control in our country and that what we need is not more 'stuff,' we really wanted to give a meaningful, handmade gift to our loved ones because, honestly, we couldn't think of anything good enough to buy. We were being hypocrites by making everyone else's gift but his!"
#2 I hate toy stores, especially at Christmas. They beat the joy right out of gift-giving.
The Advent Conspiracy asks people to shop less and give people something more precious - your time, your attention, your love. Give presence, not presents. I love that idea, but it goes against the West's culture of gift giving - of black Friday and 'finding the best deals', of waking up at four in the morning and standing in line in the cold to get the "perfect" gift. It's easy to poo poo the West for being so materialistic, but at the same time I think that the sentiment is in the right place, even if it is misdirected a little.

Herein lies the dilemma. Giving, something that should be lovely and selfless, becomes stressful and problematic. And that's mostly why we decided to only give handmade gifts this year - to combine the present and the presence. The toy store was out of the item we wanted to buy for Jack. Was it a sign? Maybe. Who's to say what Jack will find under the tree this holiday.
As for the rest of our family, hopefully everyone will love their handmade gifts:









Love, Ginger and Rich
This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic and post responses - all of us together at the same time, even though we are continents apart. (Lovely!) Introducing Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Parade of Lights

My mom owes me twenty bucks.*

During the last afternoon of her visit, we piled in the car to get our ritual town coke** and decided to check out the prices for our community's "Parade of [Christmas] Lights" exhibit. The sign read, "$15 per car Monday-Thursday; $20 on the week ends."

Fully aware that our one-and-a-half year old son, Jack, loves lights we knew we had to go. Evidence: when Jack wakes up he runs to the living room, points to the Christmas tree and says, "chee!" (his word for tree, the sentiment being, "Momma, could we please turn on the lights on the Christmas tree?"), and then he whirls around to the kitchen and says, "nomin?," translated as "snowman?" our other light-up decoration we keep by his seat at the kitchen table. And then there are the lights around our front door, a little strand of red and white that we haphazardly threw up just to say we decorated. At night he sees lights on the other houses in our neighborhood. He points at them and yells, "Oh Wow!" And then there are the normal lights in the house - the fan light, and the bathroom light, and the kitchen light, all the normal lamps and flashlights, etc. that he notices. With delight he exclaims, "Ooooh!" as we illuminate each of them through the course of the evening.

That afternoon Mom said, "Ginger, you have to take Jack to see the Parade of Lights. In fact you might have to leave the Christmas tree up all year! He loves it! I'll leave you the money to go. Just promise me you'll take him!"

She forgot to leave the money, but we were convinced we had to go.

And we went.

We left right as the sun was slumping on the horizon and the sky was that gorgeous deep blue, the color that makes a whimsical impression and then quickly fades to black. I wanted to be sure to be at the front of the line at that moment in order to avoid the crowd. Already lines of cars, bumper to bumper, sat in two lanes full of families who were eager, if not a little impatient, to see the festive spectacle. I remembered to bring snacks and the eclectic "Happy Holy Days"CD my friend Russell for us. All was perfect!

When we got to the entrance, we paid, turned off our headlights as per the sign, and I pulled Jack out of his car seat into my lap so that he could see better. We drove through the maze of lights. There were a million things to see: blinking toy soldiers, a hundred Santas making toys, reindeer attending flight school, angels heralding, elves having snowball fights, deer leaping, squirrels throwing nuts, - a billion, trillion things to look at!

Despite the glowing wonderland around us, Jack was most interested in the floorboard of the car. He squatted on the floor and did his best to be in the way. He found the car's hazard light button which he rhythmically pressed in time to the Happy Holy Days CD. We tried to point and squeal like he does every morning to trick him into being interested, but he fussed and wanted down, and needed to do everything except look at lights. In short, going to the Parade of Lights was a nightmare for our son.

At the end of the trail was a lovely carnival complete with rides, funnel cakes, and pictures with Santa. Jack looked around, blinking, drooling, bored. We even took him on his first carousel ride. His expression remained blank as the horses went up and down and the lights spun around him. One cup of wassail later (Rich and I needed something to make it worth our while), we got back into the car to head home. Our baby had defeated us.

As soon as we pulled into our driveway and drug ourselves out of the car to come inside, Jack saw the piddly lights around the door. For the first time that night and with an expression of complete awe and wonder on his face, he exclaimed, "OH WOW!"

Of course.

* Mom, You don't really owe me $20. You do too much already! :)
** Town cokes are sacred.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Times Remembered

“Remember : Don’t jump off the roof.”

My dad said this to me at the end of our last phone conversation. Actually, he says this every time we part and has done so for years. To my husband he says about me, “Make sure she doesn’t jump off the roof, ok?” This is his way of concluding a conversation. It’s his, “Take care” or “I’ll see you soon” or any other end of an encounter- a complimentary close, a final remark.

“Don’t jump off the roof” is also a literal warning, as in when I was a little girl, I did jump off the roof of my house on his watch, and the impression of that event has left a 30 year old blemish on my dad’s psyche that is only apparent to me, as he delivers that mantra every time he leaves a room that I’m standing in.
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Postulate A:
Oftentimes memories are simply interpretive imprints that mark beginnings of character definitions.

Example 1: The day one gets braces on his teeth is marked as the beginning of one’s teeth being straightened, and can be defined as the moment one began to hope he might become more attractive someday. The memory of getting one’s braces removed, as follows, is the beginning of learning how to live as one who once had braces and then braces himself for one of two experiences: a.) finding out that braces indeed made people more attracted to him as evidenced by the hoards of other straight-teethed people beating down his door to be near him or b.) realizing that having braces changed nothing except, possibly, his overbite, and now he has to cope with the understanding that there is no such thing as a sure method of becoming more attractive.

Either way, the memories that act as beginnings of life-defining moments have burrowed themselves into the brain; no matter how many times or from how many places they jump, the synapses will never be the same.

So it goes with remembering.
-
“One.. two..three..No, WAIT!” A breath. “Ok. This time I’ll do it. One..two.. three..Not yet!” I was sitting at the top peak of our single story house, my legs dangling off the side. I wanted to get down, but I was forbidden to use the ladder. That was the rule. “Ginger, if I let you come with me onto the roof, you must promise that you won’t climb down the ladder by yourself.”

I promised.

My father was working on the air conditioner and didn’t have time for my wandering spirit or my wayward bladder.

My memory of that moment is very clear. I stared at the ground pretending that the passing of time was my ally – I imagined just how it must feel to jump off, to land, and to be on the ground remembering what it was like to have jumped. “It will seem like I flew down.” I put myself safely on the ground in my mind and in doing so, strengthened my resolve to go ahead and jump. I couldn’t conceive of going back, nor could I imagine asking to climb down the ladder after making such a fool-proof agreement. “Of course, I’ll mind you, Dad. No, I won’t go down the ladder. I promise.”

Clearly, this – the jumping - had to happen. I steeled myself as, for the last time, I whispered, “One… two.. three!”

I jumped.
-
Postulate B
The problem with successful beginnings is that they make a person feel invincible.

Example 2: If a person jumps off the roof of her house as a kid, lands and sits down, thinks, “Ok. That’s that,” and then goes inside the house to resume normalcy, the rest of her life is filled with that expectation – that if one imagines she can do something, isn’t breaking any solid promises, and feels confident that a little leap is worth a result, her life is filled with similar attempts. In a way, it’s like a personal dare: I dare you to kiss that boy. I dare you to go to college. I dare you to get married, to buy a house, to have a baby, to sell away your comfortable situation and start it all over again. I dare you! And after you’ve done it, imagine how relieved you’ll feel!
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How scary it must be for one to realize how little control he can have over impressionable beginnings. Even more frightening is the realization that one had no idea, until, for example, the day that his daughter jumped off the roof, that that was the beginning of how she would interpret herself: as that girl – the one who would jump off the roof, the one who would find her way around the promises, the one who would extract herself from the uncomfortable circumstance, the one who would consider flying as the first step in the resolution to find normalcy.

This post was written for the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic and post responses - all of us together at the same time even though we are continents apart. (Lovely!) As soon as I get my act together, I'll link everyone here.. :) Until then, you'll notice the others hanging out in the comments.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

One can't believe impossible things?

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass

Monday, December 14, 2009

12 things that are true this week:

1. My son is one and a half years old this week.
2. My IB students aced an important and incredibly difficult assessment.
3. This assessment was given all day Friday, Saturday, and today at our district's professional development center.
4. Giving this assessment at the PDC meant I missed two days of work, even though I was working extremely hard.
5. Missing work means that the rest of my students not taking the assessment were complete asshats, which is all the administration at my school sees.
6. The babysitter has strep throat which means I'm going to miss more school to stay home with my kid, thus giving the asshats further excuse to continue their asshattery.
7. I don't care.
8. Tomorrow I have to hire a different babysitter to watch the kid for a couple of hours so that I can attend the funeral of my good friend's 21 year old son who was murdered during a random home invasion.
9. He was shot in the leg and bled out while he was being Careflighted to the hospital.
10. He was a great kid with a bright future and was engaged to be married.
11. I don't understand
12. Tonight I went in to tuck-in my baby boy; he was awake, so I rocked him, and hugged him close. He smiled up at me and my heart was warm.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Friday Night Salon

When was the last time you had a genuine conversation--an experience not of mere self-assertion but of speaking and listening as though you had something both to offer and to receive? Our habits of language define us, but the pace of our lives is such that the simple gestures of listening carefully and speaking prudently are amazingly rare. The Friday Night Salon aims at being an alternative to the urban rush that denies the civilizing graces of community. We begin with good food and drink, then take our places in a circle for discussion about a variety of relevant, substantial topics. It's a welcome way to end the Dallas workweek.

Salon Topics--December 11, 2009

1. Is business a "calling"?

2. The public virtues

3. Is Dallas becoming more intellectual--or less? (I think you could insert your city in place of "Dallas", and also I want to add, "Is it a good thing for a city to become more intellectual?")

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Karmic Collision

I should've known yesterday that my day would be a challenge when on my drive to work a car swerved out of its lane on the highway, perpendicularly crossed two lanes of traffic, drove down a moderately steep but definitely bumpy median towards a gas station, hooked a sharp u-turn- I assume upon the realization of what speeding recklessly into a gas station truly might feel like- into oncoming traffic on the access road, and then stopped abruptly.

In that instant, my mantra turned from a zombie-esque, "coffee. coffee. coffee," to more of a horrified, "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!"

Apparently, I was not the only one who had a reaction, as several cars had to pull over to steady themselves.. or to stop in case the imminent accident were to require witness reports. I'm not sure which. I do know that if the latter is true, I was certainly one among them since I was weighing whether or not I would be able to: a.)see a car roll 5 times across a median and render aid b.)watch a car drive into the side of a gas station, burst into flames, and then be mentally Ok at having seen that happen c.)watch a car drive headfirst into another car, an all to popular murder/suicide method in this area.

What exactly was my responsibility in a situation like this? What I really wanted to do was keep driving and pretend that nothing happened. But then I'm far too responsible (or weak depending on interpretation) to ever be the girl who drives off to cope with whatever guilty instability witnessing something like that would entail. Luckily for me there were no injuries, only a severe traffic violation. Unfortunately, however, the rest of my day picked up the slack - havoc for whatever karma didn't come around in one specific accident. Five discipline referrals and an injured body later (I fell again at school), I limped my way through my front door, stupidly dedicated to "trying again" tomorrow.

Friday, December 4, 2009

BeadforLife

I'm in Florida at a conference for work today and was pleasantly surpirsed to see advocates for BeadforLife selling necklaces and bracelets in the lobby of the hotel! Their necklaces and bracelets make excellent gifts, and Christmas time is the perfect occassion to help people in need. Here's What BeadforLife is about:


BeadforLife eradicates extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads, and people who care open their hearts,homes and communities to buy and sell the beads.The beads thus become income, food, medicine, school fees and hope. It is a small miracle that enriches us all.




Our beaders and tailors are primarily impoverished women who are hardworking, intelligent, and strong in their desire to improve their lives. They make gorgeous handcrafted paper beads from recycled paper and turn them into necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Because the beaders use recycled, colorful paper, the beads help prevent environmental degradation. What was trash becomes beauty, money, food, and hope.
Click here to see how a bead is rolled

Our goal is for our members to be independent of BeadforLife within 27 months by being able to support themselves within the Ugandan economy. To assist members in launching their own small businesses or in creating new revenue streams, we provide entrepreneurial training, facilitate savings accounts, and make business funds available.

I addition to buying and selling the beads, BeadforLife sponsors Community Development projects in health, vocational training for impoverished youth, affordable housing, and business development. These projects are supported with the net profits from the sale of the beads, and support not only beaders, but other impoverished people living in Uganda. See how many people we have touched in our first years.

BeadforLife is guided by the following principles:

Creating businesses and jobs through entrepreneurial development is a more sustainable approach to poverty eradication than providing aid. Rather than becoming dependent on handouts from abroad, members build their skills and long-term capacities through meaningful creative work.

Concerned citizens in resource-abundant countries care about the issues of extreme poverty and are willing to get involved.

Paying the members fair trade prices allows them to meet their daily economic needs. Investing 100% of our net profits in community development projects for impoverished Ugandans allows for a long-term sustainable future.

Working together enriches all of us.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

American Gods

Christine introduced me to this book yesterday. More than wanting to read the book, I think the idea is interesting - that the God(s) of yore, whatever name you give him, can't survive in America for all of the demi-gods - money, Internet, reality TV shows, talking heads, patriotism, etc. - that distract us. I'm not feeling especially spiritual at the moment, but I can say that I understand the lightning speed chaos that stems from worshipping such idols. The intriguing thing is we don't even know we're doing it. In some cases, we've snowed ourselves into believing that we can be faithful in the midst of such distractions, and feel, dare I use the word, "righteous" in our justifications that are rooted in distraction.

From Publishers Weekly
Titans clash, but with more fuss than fury in this fantasy demi-epic from the author of Neverwhere. The intr
iguing premise of Gaiman's tale is that the gods of European yore, who came to North America with their immigrant believers, are squaring off for a rumble with new indigenous deities: "gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon." They all walk around in mufti, disguised as ordinary people, which causes no end of trouble for 32-year-old protagonist Shadow Moon, who can't turn around without bumping into a minor divinity. Released from prison the day after his beloved wife dies in a car accident, Shadow takes a job as emissary for Mr. Wednesday, avatar of the Norse god Grimnir, unaware that his boss's recruiting trip across the American heartland will subject him to repeat visits from the reanimated corpse of his dead wife and brutal roughing up by the goons of Wednesday's adversary, Mr. World. At last Shadow must reevaluate his own deeply held beliefs in order to determine his crucial role in the final showdown. Gaiman tries to keep the magical and the mundane evenly balanced, but he is clearly more interested in the activities of his human protagonists: Shadow's poignant personal moments and the tale's affectionate slices of smalltown life are much better developed than the aimless plot, which bounces Shadow from one episodic encounter to another in a design only the gods seem to know. Mere mortal readers will enjoy the tale's wit, but puzzle over its strained mythopoeia.

I don't mean to bash faith or religion, or secularization for that matter. I, for one, can't be on any high horse crusade when it comes to spirituality. No one can be, actually (and ironically).

A few years ago, I audited a class that proposed that the reason people/nations war is because they are afraid of losing their cultural identities, that clinging to one's norms in acts of desperation precipitates violence. This makes me think about our country, the "most powerful nation in the world," and what exactly our "norms" are. Are we being clingy? And if so, for what purpose? And do we really want to protect our brand of godliness?

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Overheard: Vertigo

Vertigo is not the fear of falling. It is the fear of wanting to fall.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Giving

I was standing in line at one of the most frantic toy stores in the world - the one that is always out of what you came to buy, even if you're going in August, even if what you want has nothing to do with Christmas - and I was kicking myself for being there for a couple of reasons:

#1 Rich and I decided that we would make our Christmas gifts this year which we are frantically currently doing. Why, then, were we at the toy store, annoyed, trying to find presents for our son and the nieces and nephews in our family? The excuses ranged from, "Well, kids don't understand the gesture of a handmade gift. They want toys! And it's Christmas, for the love of God! (Yes, go ahead and laugh at the irony.) It takes a level of maturity to understand that 'I love and value you' does not have to mean 'store bought and popular'," to "while noting that consumerism is way out of control in our country and that what we need is not more 'stuff,' we really wanted to give a meaningful, handmade gift to our loved ones because, honestly, we couldn't think of anything good enough to buy. We were being hypocrites by making everyone else's gift but his!"
#2 I hate toy stores, especially at Christmas. They beat the joy right out of gift-giving.
The Advent Conspiracy asks people to shop less and give people something more precious - your time, your attention, your love. Give presence, not presents. I love that idea, but it goes against the West's culture of gift giving - of black Friday and 'finding the best deals', of waking up at four in the morning and standing in line in the cold to get the "perfect" gift. It's easy to poo poo the West for being so materialistic, but at the same time I think that the sentiment is in the right place, even if it is misdirected a little.

Herein lies the dilemma. Giving, something that should be lovely and selfless, becomes stressful and problematic. And that's mostly why we decided to only give handmade gifts this year - to combine the present and the presence. The toy store was out of the item we wanted to buy for Jack. Was it a sign? Maybe. Who's to say what Jack will find under the tree this holiday.
As for the rest of our family, hopefully everyone will love their handmade gifts:









Love, Ginger and Rich
This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic and post responses - all of us together at the same time, even though we are continents apart. (Lovely!) Introducing Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Parade of Lights

My mom owes me twenty bucks.*

During the last afternoon of her visit, we piled in the car to get our ritual town coke** and decided to check out the prices for our community's "Parade of [Christmas] Lights" exhibit. The sign read, "$15 per car Monday-Thursday; $20 on the week ends."

Fully aware that our one-and-a-half year old son, Jack, loves lights we knew we had to go. Evidence: when Jack wakes up he runs to the living room, points to the Christmas tree and says, "chee!" (his word for tree, the sentiment being, "Momma, could we please turn on the lights on the Christmas tree?"), and then he whirls around to the kitchen and says, "nomin?," translated as "snowman?" our other light-up decoration we keep by his seat at the kitchen table. And then there are the lights around our front door, a little strand of red and white that we haphazardly threw up just to say we decorated. At night he sees lights on the other houses in our neighborhood. He points at them and yells, "Oh Wow!" And then there are the normal lights in the house - the fan light, and the bathroom light, and the kitchen light, all the normal lamps and flashlights, etc. that he notices. With delight he exclaims, "Ooooh!" as we illuminate each of them through the course of the evening.

That afternoon Mom said, "Ginger, you have to take Jack to see the Parade of Lights. In fact you might have to leave the Christmas tree up all year! He loves it! I'll leave you the money to go. Just promise me you'll take him!"

She forgot to leave the money, but we were convinced we had to go.

And we went.

We left right as the sun was slumping on the horizon and the sky was that gorgeous deep blue, the color that makes a whimsical impression and then quickly fades to black. I wanted to be sure to be at the front of the line at that moment in order to avoid the crowd. Already lines of cars, bumper to bumper, sat in two lanes full of families who were eager, if not a little impatient, to see the festive spectacle. I remembered to bring snacks and the eclectic "Happy Holy Days"CD my friend Russell for us. All was perfect!

When we got to the entrance, we paid, turned off our headlights as per the sign, and I pulled Jack out of his car seat into my lap so that he could see better. We drove through the maze of lights. There were a million things to see: blinking toy soldiers, a hundred Santas making toys, reindeer attending flight school, angels heralding, elves having snowball fights, deer leaping, squirrels throwing nuts, - a billion, trillion things to look at!

Despite the glowing wonderland around us, Jack was most interested in the floorboard of the car. He squatted on the floor and did his best to be in the way. He found the car's hazard light button which he rhythmically pressed in time to the Happy Holy Days CD. We tried to point and squeal like he does every morning to trick him into being interested, but he fussed and wanted down, and needed to do everything except look at lights. In short, going to the Parade of Lights was a nightmare for our son.

At the end of the trail was a lovely carnival complete with rides, funnel cakes, and pictures with Santa. Jack looked around, blinking, drooling, bored. We even took him on his first carousel ride. His expression remained blank as the horses went up and down and the lights spun around him. One cup of wassail later (Rich and I needed something to make it worth our while), we got back into the car to head home. Our baby had defeated us.

As soon as we pulled into our driveway and drug ourselves out of the car to come inside, Jack saw the piddly lights around the door. For the first time that night and with an expression of complete awe and wonder on his face, he exclaimed, "OH WOW!"

Of course.

* Mom, You don't really owe me $20. You do too much already! :)
** Town cokes are sacred.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Times Remembered

“Remember : Don’t jump off the roof.”

My dad said this to me at the end of our last phone conversation. Actually, he says this every time we part and has done so for years. To my husband he says about me, “Make sure she doesn’t jump off the roof, ok?” This is his way of concluding a conversation. It’s his, “Take care” or “I’ll see you soon” or any other end of an encounter- a complimentary close, a final remark.

“Don’t jump off the roof” is also a literal warning, as in when I was a little girl, I did jump off the roof of my house on his watch, and the impression of that event has left a 30 year old blemish on my dad’s psyche that is only apparent to me, as he delivers that mantra every time he leaves a room that I’m standing in.
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Postulate A:
Oftentimes memories are simply interpretive imprints that mark beginnings of character definitions.

Example 1: The day one gets braces on his teeth is marked as the beginning of one’s teeth being straightened, and can be defined as the moment one began to hope he might become more attractive someday. The memory of getting one’s braces removed, as follows, is the beginning of learning how to live as one who once had braces and then braces himself for one of two experiences: a.) finding out that braces indeed made people more attracted to him as evidenced by the hoards of other straight-teethed people beating down his door to be near him or b.) realizing that having braces changed nothing except, possibly, his overbite, and now he has to cope with the understanding that there is no such thing as a sure method of becoming more attractive.

Either way, the memories that act as beginnings of life-defining moments have burrowed themselves into the brain; no matter how many times or from how many places they jump, the synapses will never be the same.

So it goes with remembering.
-
“One.. two..three..No, WAIT!” A breath. “Ok. This time I’ll do it. One..two.. three..Not yet!” I was sitting at the top peak of our single story house, my legs dangling off the side. I wanted to get down, but I was forbidden to use the ladder. That was the rule. “Ginger, if I let you come with me onto the roof, you must promise that you won’t climb down the ladder by yourself.”

I promised.

My father was working on the air conditioner and didn’t have time for my wandering spirit or my wayward bladder.

My memory of that moment is very clear. I stared at the ground pretending that the passing of time was my ally – I imagined just how it must feel to jump off, to land, and to be on the ground remembering what it was like to have jumped. “It will seem like I flew down.” I put myself safely on the ground in my mind and in doing so, strengthened my resolve to go ahead and jump. I couldn’t conceive of going back, nor could I imagine asking to climb down the ladder after making such a fool-proof agreement. “Of course, I’ll mind you, Dad. No, I won’t go down the ladder. I promise.”

Clearly, this – the jumping - had to happen. I steeled myself as, for the last time, I whispered, “One… two.. three!”

I jumped.
-
Postulate B
The problem with successful beginnings is that they make a person feel invincible.

Example 2: If a person jumps off the roof of her house as a kid, lands and sits down, thinks, “Ok. That’s that,” and then goes inside the house to resume normalcy, the rest of her life is filled with that expectation – that if one imagines she can do something, isn’t breaking any solid promises, and feels confident that a little leap is worth a result, her life is filled with similar attempts. In a way, it’s like a personal dare: I dare you to kiss that boy. I dare you to go to college. I dare you to get married, to buy a house, to have a baby, to sell away your comfortable situation and start it all over again. I dare you! And after you’ve done it, imagine how relieved you’ll feel!
-
How scary it must be for one to realize how little control he can have over impressionable beginnings. Even more frightening is the realization that one had no idea, until, for example, the day that his daughter jumped off the roof, that that was the beginning of how she would interpret herself: as that girl – the one who would jump off the roof, the one who would find her way around the promises, the one who would extract herself from the uncomfortable circumstance, the one who would consider flying as the first step in the resolution to find normalcy.

This post was written for the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic and post responses - all of us together at the same time even though we are continents apart. (Lovely!) As soon as I get my act together, I'll link everyone here.. :) Until then, you'll notice the others hanging out in the comments.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

One can't believe impossible things?

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass

Monday, December 14, 2009

12 things that are true this week:

1. My son is one and a half years old this week.
2. My IB students aced an important and incredibly difficult assessment.
3. This assessment was given all day Friday, Saturday, and today at our district's professional development center.
4. Giving this assessment at the PDC meant I missed two days of work, even though I was working extremely hard.
5. Missing work means that the rest of my students not taking the assessment were complete asshats, which is all the administration at my school sees.
6. The babysitter has strep throat which means I'm going to miss more school to stay home with my kid, thus giving the asshats further excuse to continue their asshattery.
7. I don't care.
8. Tomorrow I have to hire a different babysitter to watch the kid for a couple of hours so that I can attend the funeral of my good friend's 21 year old son who was murdered during a random home invasion.
9. He was shot in the leg and bled out while he was being Careflighted to the hospital.
10. He was a great kid with a bright future and was engaged to be married.
11. I don't understand
12. Tonight I went in to tuck-in my baby boy; he was awake, so I rocked him, and hugged him close. He smiled up at me and my heart was warm.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Friday Night Salon

When was the last time you had a genuine conversation--an experience not of mere self-assertion but of speaking and listening as though you had something both to offer and to receive? Our habits of language define us, but the pace of our lives is such that the simple gestures of listening carefully and speaking prudently are amazingly rare. The Friday Night Salon aims at being an alternative to the urban rush that denies the civilizing graces of community. We begin with good food and drink, then take our places in a circle for discussion about a variety of relevant, substantial topics. It's a welcome way to end the Dallas workweek.

Salon Topics--December 11, 2009

1. Is business a "calling"?

2. The public virtues

3. Is Dallas becoming more intellectual--or less? (I think you could insert your city in place of "Dallas", and also I want to add, "Is it a good thing for a city to become more intellectual?")

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Karmic Collision

I should've known yesterday that my day would be a challenge when on my drive to work a car swerved out of its lane on the highway, perpendicularly crossed two lanes of traffic, drove down a moderately steep but definitely bumpy median towards a gas station, hooked a sharp u-turn- I assume upon the realization of what speeding recklessly into a gas station truly might feel like- into oncoming traffic on the access road, and then stopped abruptly.

In that instant, my mantra turned from a zombie-esque, "coffee. coffee. coffee," to more of a horrified, "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!"

Apparently, I was not the only one who had a reaction, as several cars had to pull over to steady themselves.. or to stop in case the imminent accident were to require witness reports. I'm not sure which. I do know that if the latter is true, I was certainly one among them since I was weighing whether or not I would be able to: a.)see a car roll 5 times across a median and render aid b.)watch a car drive into the side of a gas station, burst into flames, and then be mentally Ok at having seen that happen c.)watch a car drive headfirst into another car, an all to popular murder/suicide method in this area.

What exactly was my responsibility in a situation like this? What I really wanted to do was keep driving and pretend that nothing happened. But then I'm far too responsible (or weak depending on interpretation) to ever be the girl who drives off to cope with whatever guilty instability witnessing something like that would entail. Luckily for me there were no injuries, only a severe traffic violation. Unfortunately, however, the rest of my day picked up the slack - havoc for whatever karma didn't come around in one specific accident. Five discipline referrals and an injured body later (I fell again at school), I limped my way through my front door, stupidly dedicated to "trying again" tomorrow.

Friday, December 4, 2009

BeadforLife

I'm in Florida at a conference for work today and was pleasantly surpirsed to see advocates for BeadforLife selling necklaces and bracelets in the lobby of the hotel! Their necklaces and bracelets make excellent gifts, and Christmas time is the perfect occassion to help people in need. Here's What BeadforLife is about:


BeadforLife eradicates extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads, and people who care open their hearts,homes and communities to buy and sell the beads.The beads thus become income, food, medicine, school fees and hope. It is a small miracle that enriches us all.




Our beaders and tailors are primarily impoverished women who are hardworking, intelligent, and strong in their desire to improve their lives. They make gorgeous handcrafted paper beads from recycled paper and turn them into necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Because the beaders use recycled, colorful paper, the beads help prevent environmental degradation. What was trash becomes beauty, money, food, and hope.
Click here to see how a bead is rolled

Our goal is for our members to be independent of BeadforLife within 27 months by being able to support themselves within the Ugandan economy. To assist members in launching their own small businesses or in creating new revenue streams, we provide entrepreneurial training, facilitate savings accounts, and make business funds available.

I addition to buying and selling the beads, BeadforLife sponsors Community Development projects in health, vocational training for impoverished youth, affordable housing, and business development. These projects are supported with the net profits from the sale of the beads, and support not only beaders, but other impoverished people living in Uganda. See how many people we have touched in our first years.

BeadforLife is guided by the following principles:

Creating businesses and jobs through entrepreneurial development is a more sustainable approach to poverty eradication than providing aid. Rather than becoming dependent on handouts from abroad, members build their skills and long-term capacities through meaningful creative work.

Concerned citizens in resource-abundant countries care about the issues of extreme poverty and are willing to get involved.

Paying the members fair trade prices allows them to meet their daily economic needs. Investing 100% of our net profits in community development projects for impoverished Ugandans allows for a long-term sustainable future.

Working together enriches all of us.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

American Gods

Christine introduced me to this book yesterday. More than wanting to read the book, I think the idea is interesting - that the God(s) of yore, whatever name you give him, can't survive in America for all of the demi-gods - money, Internet, reality TV shows, talking heads, patriotism, etc. - that distract us. I'm not feeling especially spiritual at the moment, but I can say that I understand the lightning speed chaos that stems from worshipping such idols. The intriguing thing is we don't even know we're doing it. In some cases, we've snowed ourselves into believing that we can be faithful in the midst of such distractions, and feel, dare I use the word, "righteous" in our justifications that are rooted in distraction.

From Publishers Weekly
Titans clash, but with more fuss than fury in this fantasy demi-epic from the author of Neverwhere. The intr
iguing premise of Gaiman's tale is that the gods of European yore, who came to North America with their immigrant believers, are squaring off for a rumble with new indigenous deities: "gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon." They all walk around in mufti, disguised as ordinary people, which causes no end of trouble for 32-year-old protagonist Shadow Moon, who can't turn around without bumping into a minor divinity. Released from prison the day after his beloved wife dies in a car accident, Shadow takes a job as emissary for Mr. Wednesday, avatar of the Norse god Grimnir, unaware that his boss's recruiting trip across the American heartland will subject him to repeat visits from the reanimated corpse of his dead wife and brutal roughing up by the goons of Wednesday's adversary, Mr. World. At last Shadow must reevaluate his own deeply held beliefs in order to determine his crucial role in the final showdown. Gaiman tries to keep the magical and the mundane evenly balanced, but he is clearly more interested in the activities of his human protagonists: Shadow's poignant personal moments and the tale's affectionate slices of smalltown life are much better developed than the aimless plot, which bounces Shadow from one episodic encounter to another in a design only the gods seem to know. Mere mortal readers will enjoy the tale's wit, but puzzle over its strained mythopoeia.

I don't mean to bash faith or religion, or secularization for that matter. I, for one, can't be on any high horse crusade when it comes to spirituality. No one can be, actually (and ironically).

A few years ago, I audited a class that proposed that the reason people/nations war is because they are afraid of losing their cultural identities, that clinging to one's norms in acts of desperation precipitates violence. This makes me think about our country, the "most powerful nation in the world," and what exactly our "norms" are. Are we being clingy? And if so, for what purpose? And do we really want to protect our brand of godliness?