A Mindful Life / Kathryn Petro Harper » Social Science

Tell Me About Despair, Yours

Kathryn — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:27:18 +0000

As Claire gets older and encounters the world, I find myself thinking that I need an exorcism of my past. That sounds drastic, yes? Claire displays an intensity and sensitivity that I recognize. I observe how she interacts with kids at school, and I feel painful echoes. I want so much not to project my past hurts and memories on to her — she needs me to be confident in her and for her.

Yet I struggle. When I think back over my childhood and school experiences, I don’t wax nostalgic. The first memories that come to mind are not happy ones. In a perfect storm combining my personality, family milieu, and the outside world, I entered kindergarten absolutely not ready for school or the world.

I was a timid, docile child, perceptive and agonizingly sensitive. I had older sisters who were in school full-time when I was pre-school age, so I had no experience playing with peers and navigating the conflict that arises from this. My first day of kindergarten I was so scared I refused to eat snack and cried. Throughout elementary school I seemed to attract unkind treatment. By the time I entered middle school, my way of dealing with peers was to bury my nose in a book and remain detached. I didn’t socialize much with people in or out of school. My self-confidence measured near zero.

One evening I talked with Hub about a school memory that still causes tears (and if I get started, I recall others that do too). My husband asked, “What would you have wished for?” The six-year-old me had a ready answer: to feel safe.

I have since written in a private post at least 20 events at or near school through my youth that generated a lot of pain then and have the power to still. Now, I know that many people experienced bullying or hurtful incidents in school. My husband has even described memories. However, he (and others) don’t carry the pain as I do, and don’t project it all onto their child’s life. Re-reading my list, I have to remind myself that these incidents occurred over thousands of days of school. I’m certain that many of those days were at least neutral, and just as many were happy days, or contained happy moments. My life wasn’t a torment every single day. My list of injuries strikes me as banal.

So what the hell is the problem?

The pain is not something I nurture; I don’t ruminate anymore over my past injuries. It comes unbidden, rising and engulfing me like a rapid tide whenever I observe my child encountering difficulty (e.g., rejection — whether perceived by her or real). I am transported instantly to childhood and respond accordingly, but this is overlaid with the protectiveness of a mother, and so all my energy goes awry. I personalize Claire’s experiences as my own. It interferes with my ability to be present for her.

Part of this pain is just a parent’s burden. We worry about our children. We ache for them. We want to protect them. Yet I feel that somehow I respond internally in a way that many (most?) other parents don’t. I feel raw and unable to maintain composure. Claire detects and absorbs my anxiety.

Observing Claire deal with her hurt feelings brings a mixture of pain on her behalf, irritation that she’s not tougher, and fear for her well-being in the world. I cannot control what she encounters out there when she starts school full-time this fall. However, I can provide a loving, peaceful, supportive home environment; home can be safe haven. But only if I manage to separate my angst-ridden ego from its Herculean attachment to my past.

So here is my question (italicized below), arising from a Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese”:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Tell me your despair. Tell me your childhood school memories. Are they happy or harsh, or a mix? Tell me if they still rule you, and if not, how did you win freedom?

A New Year

Kathryn — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:14:14 +0000

Facebook has replaced blogging, it seems. At least for me. What to do with this little outpost on the web?

Happy new year, anyway.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

–Pico Iyer, The Joy of Quiet

Summer Days

Kathryn — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 03:32:48 +0000

The lull of summer has me reading a lot but writing little. This blog has become a pictorial daybook with a few quotes tossed in for spice. Well, I blame the summer, but evidence shows that this is the trend my life has taken for the past year. Somewhere along the way I feel I’ve lost my mind. Not in a mental-illness sense, but more in a “I’m a thinking person who has thoughts about what’s happening in the world and am capable of articulating them.” Yet unfortunately, I feel increasingly removed from it all, and apathetic; I rarely read news or listen to NPR anymore. It didn’t help the other day when I read an article about Sheryl Sandberg in the New Yorker. I’m so utterly unaccomplished, my ego tells me. I’m just a mother. Just a housewife (and not an exceptionally good one at that). Just nothing.

But aren’t we all nothing? Everything changes. Human endeavor fades and is forgotten. Eventually we all end up the same place. And there is freedom in knowing and accepting this. Freedom to pay attention to what matters right now, and to enjoy this moment. That’s my bit of insight for today, because it’s late, and I’ve just finished sweeping, mopping, folding, washing, changing sheets, and pilling the cat. Meanwhile, take a peek at what’s been happening.

Claire earned her princess bike because she graduated to being a big girl and uses the potty. Pedaling and steering take concentration!

She also had her first session of swim lessons and loved it, especially her teacher. She’ll have one more week, and then we’ll see.

I did a lot of cutting, gluing, and tying, but Claire decorated with glitter glue and stickers. It moves beautifully in the slightest breeze.

We did this craft awhile back, right after 4th of July!

Claire had me draw the rainbow and face, and she colored the rainbow and decided to use beads for flowers.

Raising A Momma

Kathryn — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 05:27:49 +0000

Mine, all mine!

At preschool, Claire had a tendency to hurtle into tears if a small thing didn’t go her way, or if she perceived some other child’s behavior as a slight. My response typically had been to croon, hug, and comfort. For instance, one day she brought a stuffed animal with her. In circle time we sing hello to everybody. When we sang hello to her and went on to the next child, she wanted us to sing hello to her animal. When we didn’t, she was more than crestfallen; she was crushed. She burst into sobs, got up, and came running to me.

Claire worried a lot about the other kids not liking her. She thought they might laugh at or make fun of her. (At this age, the kids are only just starting to play together, and she was worried about that?) She was moody. She wanted to control and direct the story of all the pretend play with other kids (and Mommy and Daddy). On the days I was working at the school, she wanted all of my attention. Especially when it came time for me to be in parent discussion.

I began to feel less like a mother and more like her pawn. The neediness in her was insatiable, and her behavior more like a tyrant. I talked with her teacher about it, and she suggested I back off a little. As an example, she talked about the day we didn’t sing hello to her animal. The teacher said, “Your response was to cuddle and reinforce the sadness. But another way to respond is to say, ‘That’s just not what we do here! We sing hello to the students, not all their toys!’ And to help her to lighten up and see it isn’t a big deal.”

And that’s when I realized something. I was teetering on the brink of overcompensating for my own childhood. Not every occasion of disappointment requires deep empathy. Part of my duty as a mother is to prepare Claire to ride with changes, to be flexible. I also had not realized how frightening it must be for Claire to have as much power over me as she did. When she was a baby, she needed all of me, and I gave it. What she needs now, as she moves into the world, is to need less of me. So I began to set more boundaries on what she could have of me. One day she forgot a toy in the car that she wanted for show and tell; it had been her task to remember. When I would not take her back to the car to retrieve it — since we’d gotten to class — Claire gave a world-class demonstration of temper. But I held firm, and she survived and learned a lesson about responsibility.

I continued to heed the teacher’s words that “what you pay attention to grows” and gave more attention to joy than sorrow. Remarkably, within a couple of weeks I, the teacher, and other parents noticed a significant change. Claire began to play with the kids more and less by herself. She participated more in circle time, singing and dancing. She didn’t intrude on me during discussion and instead after snack said, “Bye Mom!” and went outside to play for the last hour. She didn’t attempt to check on me, to get my attention or tell me “something important.”

To sleep, perchance…

When Claire turned three she attempted to stop napping. Her doctor expressed concern about this, because, she said, three-year-olds still really do need a nap. It was true. Claire only slept 9-10 hours at night, and I could see she benefitted from her naps. After a week of refusing to nap, Claire was falling over with exhaustion and emotionally explosive. She also got really sick with a high fever the day before we took a big trip.

Doctor suggested I offer incentives, e.g., “If you nap, you can watch a show after.” (Or whatever special treat might work for Claire.) The bribe of extra t.v. worked until it didn’t — about one week. I tried quiet time, during which she wouldn’t fall asleep but would rock and listen to music for an hour, but this still didn’t provide her the rest she needed. So I returned to the way we handled naps for the first seven months of her life. I rocked her, sang to her, and held her for the duration of the nap, dozing with her.

This worked well. We had preschool two afternoons a week and it was clear those took a toll, but over the school year her stamina increased. And with the steady increase of stamina came the resistance to nap again. I was able to override her refusal most of the time, sometimes by cajoling, other times by threatening (I’ll leave the room and close the door).

When I went away for my getaway weekend, Claire didn’t nap, of course. And when I returned, I allowed this to remain. She is adjusting. She is slightly more tired during the day than she used to be, but it seems a steady state. Her night sleep has increased somewhat, and the quiet hour rejuvenates us both. Best of all, a new world is opening up, the one where we can be unconcerned about “getting home in time” for the nap window. And rather than a two-hour semi-nap sitting up with a crick in my neck, I get one blessed hour to meditate and read while she rocks and listens to music.

So skinny she hula hoops with a cheerio

In April we took our cat to the vet for a blood test, and Claire happened to step on the huge dog scale for fun. The scale read her weight as 28 pounds. I was shocked. It couldn’t be right! She weighed 29 pounds at her annual visit last September!

I’d always fretted about Claire’s nutrition and eating habits. Except for bologna and hot dogs, she eschewed meat. She refuses all forms of milk: cow, soy, almond, flavored, regular, etc. She doesn’t eat much yogurt or cheese. She eats veggies, but only mostly raw. She eats fruit, but only a certain few. Meals involved me asking her what she wanted to eat and trying to please her. Dinners meant cooking something I knew she’d eat, but her whims changed. For awhile I even fed her separately.

Yet here she was weighing less. So we went to her doctor. I learned she had grown taller — 2.5 inches since last September, and since she hadn’t been gaining her growth curve was a little skewed. Her BMI is 13 (what I wouldn’t give for that). Overall, the doctor wasn’t worried because growth occurred. She suggested I take the PAMF Feeding Your Preschooler class for ideas I might use. I came away with a huge list of food Claire does eat and saw that for the most part she is eating well. I learned that my concept of portion sizes for kids was distorted. I learned that we’d be better served if I quit offering her snacks (even salad veggies) to eat while she watched PBS before dinner.

So I relaxed. We have all meals and snacks at table now. I established a firmer schedule and held to it; if she doesn’t eat snack when it’s snack time and decides she’s hungry before lunch/dinner, she just has to wait. I decide what to offer and she either eats or not. I sit with her for all meals (it’s no fun to eat by yourself). I’ve cooked more foods I like despite knowing she won’t probably eat them. Every meal now has bread on the table along with salad, so she’ll get something in her. And guess what has happened? Claire is trying more foods! She has decided she likes pepperoni pizza (previously only cheese would do), cherries, and breakfast sausage.

This combination of releasing the worry and desire to control and establishing parent-driven meal times and menus has freed us. I do my job: offer healthy foods at appropriate times. She does her job deciding whether and what to eat. Talk at mealtimes now focuses on topics other than food, and “encouragement” to eat more. I don’t think she’s gained weight so far, but I see now that I can relax and accept my little petite “Eclaire” and enjoy her. We enjoy each other and our meals more now.

The last step of toddlerhood

I want to keep potty-training stories to a minimum in consideration of Claire’s privacy. Suffice it to say that she’s been ready and resistant for some time, but in part her resistance reflected my own. There have been attempts to use the potty since she was two, but I didn’t push because I feared a power struggle. But last week Claire declared she wanted to wear panties (for the second month in a row, the first being April but she quit after a weekend). And I said okay, and that it meant the changing pad, diaper pail, and all Pull-ups were going away forever. (She hugged her changing pad good-bye.)

The first few days were rocky, and I despaired. But we have persisted, and I’ve devised a way to encourage and reward her daily for her effort and increasing competence. She knows she will be enrolled in swimming lessons now, and that after our trip east she’ll get a “princess bike” she yearns for. For shorter-term rewards, she’s getting smaller things. She wanted pink “tap shoes” (Mary Janes), and so this was her gift for completing one week of using the potty. She also lately pines for “princess bubble bath” and, of all things, an American flag, so her gift for the end of the second week will likely be those. They are small, tangible reinforcements of her success. Not too far in the future I see the sticker chart, small candies, and weekly prizes will fade as this function just becomes a routine in her life.

Momma is all grown up! At least for now, for this age and stage and minute. And Claire? Well, she jumps for joy!

St. Pat

Kathryn — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:42:23 +0000

Hope you’ve had a wonderful day!

HaHaHa [Choke]

Kathryn — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:34:32 +0000

Gas prices have taken off! This made me laugh. I do expect, however, that prices here will reach $5.00 a gallon by mid-2012 at the latest. I’m basing the costs of preschool (and whether to continue commuting to our current one, which is a 34-mile round trip) on this assumption. We shall see!

NPR Rap

Kathryn — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:31:01 +0000

Some unknown guy created a rap tribute to NPR and other public radio stations. Genuine pleasure. Reminds me to renew my membership!! If embed doesn’t work, here’s a link: NPR Rap.

My Brain Hurts Sometimes

Kathryn — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 01:47:26 +0000

Today Claire asked, “What is a symbol?”

I tried to answer. A symbol is a small picture that represents a thing that has a certain meaning. The letter T for the “t” sound, for example. Words are symbols. A red light is a symbol, telling people to make their car stop at it, while a yellow light means to slow down and a green one to go. A logo — like the eagle on the side of the mail truck — is a symbol for the company that is called the U.S. Postal Service. A picture of a heart means love. Candy canes are symbols for Christmas.

Then she asked, “What is the symbol for the universe?”

Wow! I told her there are many symbols — religious ones, scientific ones, artistic ones — but that the universe was sooooooo big that no one symbol can completely show what the universe is or means.

That seemed to satisfy her for that moment. More stuff for that growing brain to think about!

I Might Rather Talk About How Babies Are Made

Kathryn — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:45:03 +0000

Husband and I are best described as agnostic. I grew up Catholic but am no longer practicing, and I do not agree with/believe/follow the creed. However, we are trying to ensure Claire grows up with an awareness of what this season is about beyond Santa (though Santa is special too, and about love). We read her books, such as Room for a Little One and This is the Stable. They are sweet books conveying the story of a special baby’s birth in humble circumstances. We also listen to a lot of carols, traditional and modern.

So we were listening to a song by Sean Colvin about Mary’s journey to Bethlehem. These days, Claire wants to know what every song is about. She asked about the song. I said it’s about a girl named Mary who journeyed a long way and had a baby in a Bethlehem stable and named him Jesus. Then she asked, “Who’s Jesus?”

Ummm… I said, “Jesus was a person who grew up to teach people to love each other, to be kind and compassionate and to forgive each other.”

That’s sufficient for a three-year-old, right? Then she asked, “What is Jesus’ Daddy’s name?”

Gulp! “Many people think a being named God is Jesus’ Daddy. But Joseph the carpenter was Mary’s husband and raised Jesus as his own son.” I’m the embodiment of finesse, I tell you!

Curiosity sufficiently sated for the moment, she moved on to another topic. She keeps me on my toes!

On Second Thought…

Kathryn — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:41:11 +0000

If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.

– Marcus Bridgstocke

On T.V. News

Kathryn — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:04:33 +0000

Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone.

–Hodding Carter

Labor Day Anthem

Kathryn — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:49:02 +0000

This song gives me chills every time I hear it. Before I met my husband, I lived on the edge this song describes. (We are incredibly fortunate and grateful for that.) I also used to work with (i.e., provide social services to) people whose lives were rife with the challenges that he sings about. And there is a blogger I know and admire who works and serves people in the situations he sings about and somehow keeps her sanity. This is for all of them and for her. (If the video doesn’t show and play for you, click this link to see it.) Turn up the volume, close your eyes, and really listen. Then, if you can, do something to help somebody, somewhere. Here are a couple of places to start:

Modest Needs
Feeding America

The Test of Twelve

Kathryn — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:10:34 +0000

I’m not a parent who buys into the “stranger danger” propaganda. By this, I mean that I’m not worried that a kidnapping or molestation of my child is just around every corner. I’m a big supporter of the Free-Range Kid movement. Occasionally strangers attempt to harm people, but the majority of harm done to children is usually by someone they know.

Claire has a collection of Pooh stories (not written by A.A. Milne) that she loves; one is called “Don’t Talk to Strangers, Pooh.” I dread when she asks it to be read to her, and I always re-word it as I read. I don’t want to instill a fear of strangers into my daughter. How is she to make friends in this world, or find her way, or ask for help when she needs it? I simply want her to understand never to go off anywhere with a stranger. I want her to learn this until she is of age — that is, a confident adult who can assess risks and listen to her intuitive signals.

When I was a child, my disposition and personality attracted bullies. I was a sentimental child with zero self-confidence. (I grew up into a depressed adult with zero self-confidence, but with enough gumption and drive to heal and overcome this.) I have vivid memories of being taunted:

a bully yanking a play necklace off me in kindergarten, watching the beads scatter everywhere, hearing him tell me I could not stand on the school porch and he would kill me if I did (thank you Mark S.);
an older child riding his bike around me in ever tighter circles as I walked to piano lessons a few blocks from home, threatening to run into me;
being choked (hands tight around the neck) by a boy in third grade when I would not give him a book that I had brought to school (thank you Tony F.) — fortunately the teacher was nearby and pried his hands from my throat;
being tormented throughout fourth and fifth grade by a “friend” who happened to be the local Presbyterian minister’s kid — she hid my belongings, said terrible things to and about me, ganged up with another girl against me (thanks Suzanne H.). I was so relieved when our fifth grade teacher told me she was moving away to Massachusetts that summer;
being punched in the stomach by a class bully (a girl no less) in fifth grade (thank you Colleen F.);
being exiled from my four friends with whom I shared a table (and locker) in sixth grade — all girls, who are great at emotional bullying.

That last incident was the first — and only — time I ever fought back. It began on a Wednesday, escalated into Thursday; that night, after being physically ill with fear and worry about what they would do next, I vowed the first one to harass me the next day would get kicked in the stomach. One of them approached me with a taunt, and I kicked. Then I fled, hysterical and sobbing, to the principal’s office. I asked to call my mother, and I begged her to come take me home. The principal intervened and said they’d figure out what was going on. I was terrified that I’d hurt the girl, that I was in big trouble, that I was hated by the entire sixth grade. I spent the day with the school counselor processing all this. He came with me when I went to apologize to the girl. This was a Friday. The principal called the other girls’ parents to tell them about the ostracism. The following Monday (I agonized all weekend about what might happen next), the girls came to apologize to me and make up, and I was accepted again. That was the day of the class picnic. Life was wonderful again, for the moment.

This was all exacerbated by the fact that from age 8 through 12, life at home was not placid and secure. In fact, throughout my teen years this was the case, but by the time I reached high school I had primarily withdrawn from school life and was mostly left alone. Oh, except for the nasty rumor that I was having an affair in 11th grade with my social studies teacher; I had a crush on him, but more importantly, he listened to me pour out my troubles and referred me to the school psychologist, whom I began to see and whom I credit with keeping me intact through graduation. I’m not at liberty to describe why my home life was as it was; it’s only important to know that the milieu, combined with my personality, combined in such a way as to make me a target.

I know that it’s an animal instinct to go for the jugular, to attack the weak one. I know that fearfulness, simpering, flinching, and crying triggers the meanness in others. I have felt that meanness in myself, been tempted by it, and have occasionally indulged it. When I grew up, I realized that if I had a daughter, I want to help her to know that it is perfectly all right to defend herself. Now, my daughter is not me — she has a differently personality and home life — and I’m careful not to project my past onto her. Still, there are things worth knowing.

When I was twelve, there was a carnival down the road at Taunton Corners. Every year it came for the Firemen’s Field Days. At that age, I was allowed to walk down there myself, about a mile away. The man running the duck game flirted with me. I was taken by the attention. I flirted back in the innocent way a 12-year-old does. Then he made a suggestion to me, that I should come back that evening when the carnival was closed to spend time with him. I was intrigued, and tempted, and scared, and unnerved. Something felt icky about the way he looked at me, about the suggestion. I felt uncomfortable, and I never went; I also never back to that game. That was a good decision. I listened to my intuition, and it did not guide me poorly.

I ignored my intuition when I was 31. I ended up sexually assaulted. Not that it was my fault. It’s just that, looking back, I see the signals that I ignored because I was trying to be “a nice person,” (such a strong cultural expectation for women). I remember my reluctance to fight back, to scream; my desperate attempt to reject what was happening.

So, how does one raise a child to be secure but not naive, savvy but not paranoid? There are two books filled good guidance to answer this question, both written by Gavin DeBecker. I am pulling an excerpt from one of his books below. It is a “test” of sorts, one which he suspects many adults would not “pass” if they asked themselves these questions.

I’m not advocating raising children to be violent, to be bullies, to be snots and brats. Yet in certain circumstances, it is vitally important to be able to know and do the following. The questions pertain to interactions children have with adults, but in some cases it may be useful to think of them in context with kids who are bigger and older than the child in question.

Do your children know…

How to honor their feelings – if someone makes them uncomfortable, that’s an important signal;

You (the parents) are strong enough to hear about any experience they’ve had, no matter how unpleasant;

It’s okay to rebuff and defy adults;

It’s okay to be assertive;

How to ask for assistance or help;

How to choose whom to ask;

How to describe their peril;

It’s okay to strike, even to injure, someone if they believe they are in danger, and that you’ll support any action they take as a result of feeling uncomfortable or afraid;

It’s okay to make noise, to scream, to yell, to run;

If someone even tries to force them to go somewhere, what they scream should include, “This is not my father” (because onlookers seeing a child scream or even struggle are likely to assume the adult is a parent);

If someone says, “Don’t yell,” the thing to do is yell (and the corollary: If someone says, “Don’t tell,” the thing to do is tell);

To fully resist ever going anywhere out of public view with someone they don’t know, and particularly to resist going anywhere with someone who tries to persuade them.

–Gavin DeBecker, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

Transition

Kathryn — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:15:44 +0000

I’m dealing again with the fact that friendships are fluid; they serve for a time, and then they don’t. This is a challenge when it’s the other friend who decides to move on. It’s tempting to feel rejected, sad, angry, bitter, hurt. So I’m trying to sit with those feelings a bit — feel them, watch them, allow space to develop around them, and let them go. By dwelling in them I’ll be robbing myself of life now. I do feel a bit lonesome today, but I remind myself this will change, and that I have the ability to alter my perspective and to allow that feeling to dissipate.

Lately I’ve been preoccupied with a life transition and have been less in the loop with my playgroup. So it’s time to pick up the phone and try to arrange some dates with other mothers and their kids, and to forge some new friendships with acquaintances recently met.

On Keeping the Sabbath

Kathryn — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:54:41 +0000

I just heard a fascinating interview on Fresh Air with Judith Shulevitz as the guest.

She has written a book about the history of the Jewish sabbath and also included a memoir about her own journey into keeping Sabbath customs. I found her lyrical and articulate, and her views impressed me. What I especially appreciate is the concept of resting as a community, and of stepping back from our attempt to manipulate and control the world for one day.

For one day each week, the Sabbath encourages us to enter into a moment outside of ordinary time and all the cares associated with it. I can’t do her ideas justice; it’s worth a listen.

Even for an agnostic such as me, it was worth a listen. And now I want to read the book. It resonates the way the Unplug campaign did. I found that the weekend I unplugged for one day, I felt more centered. Last weekend I did not unplug, and I felt I hadn’t even had a weekend!

Go here for more information and to listen to the interview.

Hoo Yeah

Kathryn — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:33:33 +0000

Working in social services because you love to help people is like working at MacDonalds because you love to cook: it is torturously frustrating.

–Big Fat Trauma Queen

Unplug!

Kathryn — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:46:32 +0000

It’s a few hours after sunset, but I just found out about this. I’m posting it here and then turning off the computer. Click this link of embed doesn’t work.

A Future We Can Change

Kathryn — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:59:09 +0000

Life is competitive around here. It is everywhere, but I feel it especially here — in the play group, among other parents in general, especially when the topic of education comes up. Last year, four Gunn High School students in Palo Alto committed suicide by stepping in front of trains; already one child committed suicide the same way this year. Granted, Palo Alto manifests “the best of the best” — affluent, highly educated, highly successful Silicon Valley players who want their children to succeed and exceed the norm. Not all school districts are as packed with scrambling over-achievers.

We want a good school for Claire, but more than that, we want a good learning experience for her, and a good life. I want to see this movie when it comes out. And I want to be part of the solution.

If you can’t see the movie trailer, click this link.

New Year, New Hopes

Kathryn — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:17:08 +0000

I feel jazzed at the moment. Out of the blue, yesterday I received a lovely, gracious email from a blog reader — someone who has lurked around here for three years — and it made my day. I haven’t been feeling inspired much to write lately. Hearing from someone that she has appreciated this little world I’ve created nudges me to make an effort. So here is a post.

I recently cleared out the office, which has been the art room and the overflow room. It was cluttered and hardly usable. I’ve now reorganized all the art and craft supplies and labeled the drawers. I know where stuff is and can get to it. The vacuum cleaner fits in the closet. Now it’s ready for me to mess it up again!!

For Christmas I was given a gift card to a sewing store to sign up for lessons. I was given a sewing machine last June for my birthday, but it hasn’t been used yet! Now that the desk is clear, there is room to set it up and try a project. Soon.

We were recently referred to a new realtor by a friend. If you’ve read this blog awhile, you know we’ve been searching for a decent, affordable house to buy in the Bay Area since last January. Husband has been researching online for much longer. We were using a do-it-yourself discount realtor company, and we saw dozens and dozens of houses. We nearly made offers on three. But they didn’t work out, and I was discouraged. I’d lost hope and interest by mid-year.

So we met with this new realtor, and we like her. She has knowledge and expertise and connections with other realtors. Once she is certain about what we’re looking for, she’ll preview properties for us. She’s sending us listings we would not have considered before, because her sense of how soft prices might be means we might be able to buy a house that’s priced higher and negotiate down to our comfort level. She has even made a video of one house she viewed as a way of trying new technology this year. I’m enthused again.

Last year was a year of learning about friendship — how fluid they are. One close friendship from 2008, with a mom I saw almost daily and spoke with on the phone at least as often, ended. There was a misunderstanding, then repair, then a transition on her part to another friend. I felt abandoned and replaced, and it hurt me deeply. It left me reeling, actually, for several months. I realized during this process that I had concentrated my well-being in one relationship to the exclusion of other mother friendships. Since then, I’ve made more effort and thus more friends for me and Claire. I feel connected to a wider community. When I see this person at play group events and parties, we always chat and I enjoy it; but the part of me that broke and let go has changed. Paths diverge. It’s all right.

In November, I had hoped a long-time friend from Austin would arrange to visit with me so I could introduce her to Claire during our visit. (We’d met in 1999.) I’d been close to her when her son was born; I was designated an “auntie.” After I moved, we drifted some and had less contact. She got more passionately involved in other pursuits in 2007 and stopped following through on the small gestures and actions that nurture a friendship. I was a little hurt by this, especially because there was no response to my baby shower or Claire’s birth — and months after her birth, the friend sent a small package of hand-me-down stuff.

Well, the visit didn’t work out, and she was very blasé about it, and I wrote her about how I felt. She conceded she’d dropped the ball and mentioned wanting to connect again, and she pointed out that I had seemed distant as well. I was encouraged and looked forward to responding and trying to reconcile. However, I didn’t reply to her email quickly enough. It gave her time to reassess that she really didn’t feel it was worth it. She decided to “un-friend” me officially from her life: off of Facebook and Flickr, off my blog, everything. She removed my blog link from her blog. I imagine she has purged my contact information. I hate to think what she might have done to the artwork I’ve made and given to her in the past. It was thorough and unilateral, and it first it stunned me. But then, I decided to let it go. If that’s what she needed to do, it’s her loss. Considering the way things were, it isn’t much of one.

Lastly, someone who found my blog a couple years ago became a reader and felt inspired to start his own blog. He is a wonderful photographer and has interesting insights on the politics of our day. As my offline life got busier, I have stopped commenting on most blogs that I read. For some reason, this person felt it important to send me an email with a subject line of “Farewell” and to inform me that he was removing me from his list of blogs on his blog, because I don’t comment enough for it to feel like an exchange. He wasn’t going to read my blog anymore. He assured me that he knows I’m busy with a wonderful child, and this wasn’t meant as a slap to me. Yet somehow, it did feel like a slap. I didn’t dwell on it long, but I was reminded how tenuous our online connections can be.

So my hope for this year is that I manage to nurture the community I have offline, maintain connections with far-flung friends, and revive my online presence a bit. Somewhere in there I want to read books, make art, knit, learn to sew, buy a house, and do fun things with my family. Well, sleep is overrated, anyway.

Happy new year everyone!

Is It Even Possible?

Kathryn — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:11:27 +0000

The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.

–Alan Patrick Herbert