Category Archives: Social Science

They Needed to Do a Study For This?

You might think parents worry most about whether their children are taking drugs, having sex or joining gangs. But a new survey of Bay Area parents reveals their biggest concern is that the day-to-day stress of modern life may be making their children overweight, depressed and less interested in school.

Homework and peer pressure are constants. Divorce, the area’s high cost of living and family feuds permeate many homes. Too many extracurricular activities and academic school testing keeps many kids hopping. And all around, many kids are feeling the need to grow up — and fast.

–Julie Sevrens Lyons, Survey: Stress on kids biggest worry of Bay Area parents, San Jose Mercury News

Achingly, Beautifully Said

What it feels like, though, is that two people I love are throwing something sacred away. It’s not that I have some great idea about a Jesus-sanctioned union, but I do know what it’s like to be alone. I know how hard it is to be the only person who is responsible for taking the car to get its oil changed, for cooking breakfast, for mowing the yard. I know it’s hard, sometimes, to come home to a dark house.

Alternately, I know we are always essentially alone, in the dark hours of the soul, and to think that a spouse will make that go away is mere fantasy. I know that a spouse is not a panacea for all that ails the lonely beast, and if one has those expectations, one is going to be desperately disappointed. I know that it’s hard to still face those disappointments and keep getting up every day and making the coffee, to keep smelling the bad breath of the one who hasn’t healed you, to keep putting up with the moody tantrums of someone who refuses to fix the garage door. I know we like to think that marriage should have something to do with who you “love” or with whom you sleep. Maybe it does, in the beginning. But then there is the middle. And the end, in which neither of those things matter.

But I think you give your word when you get married. You give your word that you’re going to hang on through that, and that you’re not going to leave, and that you’re going to go to put up with your mother-in-law. You give your word that you will do every last thing you can possibly do to co-exist with this person, including making any number of sacrifices you never would have made otherwise.

You do that because if there is anything holy in this world, it is the gift of another human being who is willing to bind himself or herself to your sorry ass. You make that vow so that someone will be morally obligated to pick you up at the mechanic’s. You make that vow so there is someone else to fill out the paperwork when you have an abscessed tooth. You make that vow so that you will not have to stand alone in the pew at your father’s funeral.

It feels to me that if you have been given that gift, and it dies from neglect or squander, you make me want to puke. In your face.

–Mary, A Fly in the Honey: Mistakes Were Made

[via Santiago Dreaming]

Recognition

I haven’t written a poem in two months, so I turned to my library for inspiration.

Recognition

Playing truth or dare an hour before daylight
among the bean trees, I encounter a stranger at the gate.
When I ask what she is doing, she replies,
“Composing a life.” She seeks to answer the question,
“Is there no place on earth for me?”

I ask how she will know the answer, and she says
she will track her progress in the stone diaries.
She has an amazing grace, this girl with a pearl earring
wearing borrowed finery, and I want to know more.
I ask with an open heart, open mind, what it is she seeks.

She wants to understand the savage inequalities,
to have a reckoning with the fact that she lives
in a world where the poisonwood bible increasingly
becomes the rule of law. She wants to help people
to stop running with scissors and enjoy the perfection
of the morning.

We are surrounded by landscapes of wonder, if we
would only make the effort to see differently.

She in turn asks what I seek. I reply that I want
the courage to be, to cast a slender thread
of hope into the sea, the sea of humanity.
I want to plant new seeds of contemplation,
embrace the grace in dying. I want to
know the mystery of tying rocks to clouds.

From her angle of repose under oleander,
jacaranda, the magnificent spinster listens.
I tell her she has a beautiful mind, that
I can see the molecules of emotion swirling in her.
She tells me that I am a succulent wild woman,
that I have zen under a wing. She reminds me
that art is a way of knowing and solitude
a return to the self.

Then we part, blessing each other with traveling
mercies, with a promise to meet again
at the healing circle in Gilead.

If these words ring a bell for you, look below to see why.
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The Sun Also Rises

A couple days ago, Kat posted a poem that appeared in The Sun magazine. Then last night, a member of my memoir group brought issues of the magazine to share. In every issue, there is a section of writing submitted by readers on a topic; the topics are broad (games, decisions, hair, risk) and allow for diverse interpretations. They must be non-fiction only. She proposed we use the topics as prompts for writing and consider submitting our work.

Now, I’d heard of Sun before, but only vaguely. As a subscriber to Utne and Ode Magazine, I’ve probably read excerpts from it. I’d never seen a copy, yet it is exactly the kind of magazine I love. It presents poetry, memoir, fiction, and interviews — rich, in-depth works. It isn’t a political, spiritual, or literary magazine, but these elements do exist in it. Its agenda is to present the work of people trying to understand themselves and make sense of their lives — people who are trying to express, discover, renew, and create.

How grateful I am to be enlightened about this publication! Thanks to both women for introducing me to it.

Some Purpose That Has Come

People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help? They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world.

–James Hillman, From Little Acorns: A Radical New Psychology

Preparing for Disasters (Of Any Stripe)

Not much posting has occurred (or knitting for that matter) in the past couple of days, because I’ve been busy acquiring and organizing items for our family go-bags and home disaster kits. When we lived in central Texas, the threat was minimal. If a tornado were to hit, there would be no warning, so there seemed little point in having a kit. Besides, the damage would be localized, leaving much of the surrounding area unscathed. If my house were hit it would be a personal disaster, but not one shared by thousands of others demanding basic life support.

Now, however, we live in earthquake country. A big one could hit at any point; damage could be widespread. Of course there are other concerns too, though they feel vague: terrorism (biological perhaps) or an avian flu pandemic (not so vague). The aftermath of Katrina provided incentive to do something; I’d had the articles and lists ready for months.

I’ve been researching what is recommended and would like to share some information in case you decide to create your own. It’s a drudge chore, requires financial investment, and forces one to confront the possibility of Bad Things Happening. But now that we’ve done it (almost complete, just need to photocopy documents and purchase a few hardware items), I feel a bit of relief. I know exactly what to grab in order to survive and to take care of my cats, and I know where to lay my hands on it.

I’m not an alarmist, but the avian flu is a serious issue. So here are some links regarding this:

The CDC lists the following people as at-risk for the flu:

  • People 65 years and older;
  • People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that house those with long-term illnesses;
  • Adults and children 6 months and older with chronic heart or lung conditions, including asthma;
  • Adults and children 6 months and older who needed regular medical care or were in a hospital during the previous year because of a metabolic disease (like diabetes), chronic kidney disease, or weakened immune system (including immune system problems caused by medicines or by infection with human immunodeficiency virus [HIV/AIDS]);
  • Children 6 months to 18 years of age who are on long-term aspirin therapy. (Children given aspirin while they have influenza are at risk of Reye syndrome.);
  • Women who will be pregnant during the influenza season;
  • All children 6 to 23 months of age;
  • People with any condition that can compromise respiratory function or the handling of respiratory secretions (that is, a condition that makes it hard to breathe or swallow, such as brain injury or disease, spinal cord injuries, seizure disorders, or other nerve or muscle disorders.)
  • People 50 to 64 years of age. Because nearly one-third of people 50 to 64 years of age in the United States have one or more medical conditions that place them at increased risk for serious flu complications, vaccination is recommended for all persons aged 50-64 years.
  • People who can transmit flu to others at high risk for complications. Any person in close contact with someone in a high-risk group (see above) should get vaccinated. This includes all health-care workers, household contacts and out-of-home caregivers of children 0 to 23 months of age, and close contacts of people 65 years and older.

Yesterday while shopping at Costco for emergency supplies, I happened to notice a small line by the pharmacy. They were giving flu shots at a discount to members. Since I work with children and hope to become pregnant, I was considered a candidate. I also got a pneumonia vaccination, since I’d had it as a child and occasionally have some asthmatic breathing. A vaccination won’t protect you from all flu viruses, but some is better than none.

As for general disaster preparedness, I used the following:

One cannot prepare perfectly against disaster. That’s what disaster is: unforeseen devastation. It’s difficult to reconcile with the fact that we face the unknown all the time. I decided to prepare as best as I can — not to become pessimistic and morbid, nor to act like an ostrich and hide. It’s about finding a balance.

Magnificent Autumn!

fall arrangement

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.

–Albert Camus

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

–Stanley Horowitz

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

–George Eliot

Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.

–Yoko Ono

Hands Like These

mom and aunt reta hands

These are the hands of my mother (on the right) and my aunt (her only sibling).

These hands have kneaded dough, stirred soup, opened jars with stuck lids, chopped onions, basted roasts, shucked corn, grated cheese, sliced melon.

These hands have caressed fevered foreheads, wiped bottoms, rubbed calamine lotion on sunburn, brushed unruly tangled hair, cleaned vomit off floors, rolled hair in curlers, pulled splinters out with tweezers, dabbed ointment on boils, applied bandaids, pulled loose teeth.

These hands have waxed floors, scrubbed toilets, ironed shirts, dusted knick-knacks, pushed vacuums, refinished furniture, swept porches, laundered everyone’s dirty clothes, painted walls, hammered nails, turned screwdrivers.

These hands have potted plants, pulled weeds, raked leaves, picked tomatoes off the vine, arranged flowers, pruned bushes.

These hands have assembled costumes for school plays, sewn clothing for children, darned socks, hemmed pants, mended torn shirts, crocheted afghans.

These hands have wrapped thousands of Christmas and birthday presents.

These hands have caught balls, thrown frisbees, moved game pieces, shuffled cards, clapped at recitals, played the piano.

These hands have crafted holiday decorations, frosted cakes, demonstrated cooking techniques, made decoupage.

These hands have been chilled to the bone, cut with knives, burned on stoves, soaked with cleansers, pricked with needles, flaked and cracked from chapping.

These hands have rubbed sore necks, hugged tightly, tucked in, stroked tense backs, wiped away tears, tickled feet, held books to read, applied cosmetics, adorned necks and arms with jewelry.

These hands have written checks, counted pennies, rolled spare change, balanced budgets, cut coupons, drawn up menus, typed reports, composed email, penned letters, filed papers, driven cars to ferry others to appointments.

These hands have on rare occasion smacked an impertinent young fanny.

These hands have been used when counting to ten in the search for patience.

These hands have been clasped in prayer.

These hands have waved good-bye to their mother and father and children.

These hands have held life.

These hands have created.

These hands have wisdom.

Someday, I hope to have hands like these.

An Unnerving Stranger

Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique and separate identity; but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our “biography,” our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards … It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn’t that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, how ever boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?

And doesn’t this point to something fundamentally tragic about our way of life? We live under an assumed identity, in an nuerotic fairy tale world with no more reality than the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland. Hypnotized by the thrill of building, we have raised the houses of our lives on sand. This world can seem marvelously convincing until death collapses the illusion and evicts us from our hiding place. What will happen to us then if we have no clue of any deeper reality?

–Sogyal Rinpoche, Tibetan Book of Living & Dying

You Make a Promise

For some reason memory brought up Mary Karr’s second memoir, Cherry, which details her adolescent experiences near Port Arthur, Texas (on the Gulf). At one point she recalls falling into a deep depression around age 13, although like all great writers, she doesn’t call it that; she describes her experiences, thoughts, and feelings. There was one passage that I found wry, sweet, and affirming, and that generated a welling in my eyes — both for the message of the tale and her method of writing. Here it is:
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Hidden Ground

By being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen which cannot be learned any more than breathing), we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained; the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations.

–Thomas Merton, Essential Writings