I received an email from a relative on my mother’s side of the family announcing:
KATHRYN SACKINGER, the daughter of R. Bruce Sackinger and the granddaughter of William M. and Patricia Sackinger of Fairbanks, Alaska, has become the Champion Speller of the State of Oregon for 2004 and will compete in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC on June 1-3, 2004.
Having just watched Spellbound last weekend, I’m pleased with the synchronicity of this news. I recommend the movie. It provides a slice-of-life glimpse into the lives of eight spellers. It also provides a bit of history about this uniquely American competition.
Studies show that gregarious, well-connected people actually lost friends, and experienced symptoms of loneliness and depression, after joining discussion groups and other activities. People who communicated with disembodied strangers online found the experience empty and emotionally frustrating but were nonetheless seduced by the novelty of the new medium. As Prof. Robert Kraut, a Carnegie Mellon researcher, told me recently, such people allowed low-quality relationships developed in virtual reality to replace higher-quality relationships in the real world.
No group has embraced this socially impoverishing trade-off more enthusiastically than adolescents, many of whom spend most of their free hours cruising the Net in sunless rooms. This hermetic existence has left many of these teenagers with nonexistent social skills — a point widely noted in stories about the computer geeks who rose to prominence in the early days of Silicon Valley.
The post just preceding this was written by the husband of the woman who writes Dooce. Heather is knee-slappingly funny at times; she expresses herself with an artful blend of sarcasm and sweetness that makes her writing fresh and taut. She’s immensely enjoyable. Since I’ve been pondering the prospect of motherhood, I was referred to her blog and instructed to start reading in February 2004, when Heather became a mother. Because her writing is stellar, I was almost certain she had The Perfect Life. And then I read a post titled “Surrender”:
There are many things about parenthood that I understand intellectually. I know that this period of her life is only temporary and that things will eventually get better. I know that I am a good mother and that I am meeting her needs as a baby. But depression isn’t about understanding things intellectually. It’s about an overshadowing emotional spiral that makes coping with anything nearly impossible.
I can’t cope with the screaming. I can’t cope with her not eating. I can’t cope with the constant pacing and rocking back and forth to make sure she doesn’t start crying. I am sick with anxiety. I want to throw up all day long. There are moments during her screaming when I have to set her down and walk away and regain perspective on life, because in those very dark moments of screaming I feel like I have destroyed mine.
In this post, Heather examined her decision whether or not to take medicine while breastfeeding. As one who copes with major depression via prescription medication (in addition to therapy), I have grappled with the question: should I stop medications through pregnancy?
She wrote:
Most of the literature I have read about depression medication and the breastfeeding mother indicates that the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the possibility of the baby receiving small amounts of the medication through the breast milk. I also think that it’s more important that my daughter have a mother who can cope — a mother who isn’t sobbing uncontrollably during diaper changes — than it is for her to have a mother who is too proud to admit defeat.
I am throwing up my hands here. I cannot do this unmedicated.
This is not a decision I have made lightly. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on concerning postpartum depression in the mother and how it affects the development of the baby. I’ve talked with my doctor and friends who have experienced the same debilitating feelings. Going off depression medication a year and a half ago was so awful that I didn’t ever want to have to face that nightmare again. For the past several weeks I have been silently whispering to myself Fight this!Fight this! But I lost the fight about seven days ago.
I’m posting these excerpts to help disseminate information. Such decisions are difficult; in addition to reading medical research, a woman needs to know other women who grapple with this decision and that she is not a bad mother if she elects to take medicine. I admire and respect Heather’s willingness to reveal. My other reason for posting is that Dooce is just plain good reading. Go check it out.
There was a time in my life when I thought I wouldn’t have children. The reasons were many, and made a great deal of sense to me then. I’m glad that I didn’t have children. But I’m so glad that we have Leta now. Yes, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When she cries and I’m watching her so Heather can sleep, there are those moments when the beauty fades and it’s like holding the most raw, unstable element (probably Lawrencium) without any protection from the long half-life of the isotope. It’s scary. The emotions of love and wonder have their opposites. Fury and rancor. I haven’t yet yelled at Leta, but I’ve come close. It’s a miracle that Heather can still love this baby after all the screaming she’s done while I’m at work (I hear it on the phone when Heather calls. Pretty much during every call).
Here’s a brain snack from MacRaven, written by my buddy Dave Haxton. He often makes interesting points.
This is the ultimate statement of faith: ‘God said it, I beleive it, that settles it.’ The complete and utter refusal to believe the evidence of your own mind or eyes against the ramblings of an ancient (or, in some cases, modern) ‘revelation’. Every argument, debate or disagreement between anyone who holds to reason and someone who holds to faith will ultimately end up at the ‘Poof Point’.
Heathens don’t have much use for the Poof Factor: one of the defining characteristics of any polytheistic faith is the acceptance of other, alternate world views as equally valid and ‘true’ (small ‘T’). We recognize that our sacred texts are not ‘revelations’, but rather myths, designed to explain the natural world and our relationship to it in a context that can be easily understood. Lacking the ‘One True Way’, and without the absolute commandments of the Powers That Be, we tend to be a tolerant and discerning folk, given to questioning and testing our path.
Unfortunately, there are very few of “us” (tolerant heathens or atheists) and a whole lot of “them” (loony fundies of every stripe). The consequences of this demographic imbalance loom large in many areas.
These kinds of life stories always amuse me and inspire me to consider similar vignettes of my youth.
Suddenly my mother smiled. Without taking her eyes off my dad, she stripped down to her bra and panties, then walked past her stunned husband and opened the front door where she stood facing our neighbor’s house.
I’ve happened across a new-to-me blog called seeking clarity, and I’m drawn to the writer’s style. She is sincere, candid, and asks important questions.
I can’t even get to Ellensburg without a confidence crisis; how the hell am I supposed to choose at this fork? Left or right? East or west? And what if I think I’m turning one way and I suddenly realize that I’m going the wrong way? What if I’ve been going the wrong way all along?
In the entry, Diana explores the versions of her life. This is always fascinating — we are complex, and our lives can be viewed from numerous vantage points. Her post reminded me of the concept of metaphors of the self.
Such an important question: is there a right way through life, and if so, how am I supposed to know? I’m interested in your opinions.
Having worked at Austin Travis County MHMR for several years, I know firsthand the distress caused to clients and the community by funding cutbacks. When I saw the article below in Sunday’s news, I was compelled to reprint it here for my future reference. My hope is that someday I’ll be able to read it in my archives and reflect on it as the “bad old days.” But they say I’m a dreamer; one doesn’t enter the profession of human services unless one is a bit of an idealist.
[begin]
A Lost Life One woman tries — and fails — to navigate Texas’ shrinking mental health system
By Andrea Ball
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, May 23, 2004
A homeless man found Samantha Harvey on the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail, her lifeless body hanging from the limb of a tall cypress tree.
He called for help, and soon the woodsy area frequented by bikers and joggers was swarming with police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
They didn’t know the blond, 19-year-old woman with the aqua dress and freshly bandaged wrists; didn’t know of her long battle with depression, her previous suicide attempts, her efforts to get help.
To them she was just a sad story. That story ended on Aug. 27, 2003.
But mental health experts say she is more than that. To them Samantha symbolizes the thousands of people the Texas mental health system fails each year. The system is a patchwork of 41 community mental health centers across the state that vary in size and budgets, offer different programs and medicines and have no uniform computer or record-keeping center to connect them.
Samantha was mentally ill, poor and uninsured — a typical person lost in the system. Months after Texas legislators trimmed millions of dollars for mental health care, experts worry others will suffer the same fate.
“This is what happens when you have people falling through the cracks and not getting adequate care,” said Melanie Gantt, public policy director for the Mental Health Association in Texas.
In 2003 legislators cut $14.8 million in funding to the community mental health centers, a 5.11 percent decrease that forced agencies to drop services, lay off employees and turn away clients. They cut most therapy benefits for more than 800,000 Medicaid recipients, leaving the 128,000 people using it scrambling to find care.
Since then, mental illness-related visits to hospital and clinics have increased as much as 50 percent in the Austin area. Emergency visits to the Austin-Travis County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center have risen 5 percent.
Things soon could get worse. Starting Sept. 1., community mental health centers will accept people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and clinically severe depression only. The 17,000 other people currently being treated for ailments such as panic, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders will be phased out of the system and left to find care elsewhere. Continue reading →
Becoming a mother is a complicated thing. Not only am I trying to negotiate a relationship with my child, a relationship that defines itself as it becomes defined, I am trying to negotiate a relationship with myself as I attempt to determine how I mother, how I feel about mothering, how I want to mother and how I wish I was mothered. Having become a mother, I have also become a part of something larger than the maternal dyad of myself and my daughter: I am now a member of a new society, a new demographic, a new cultural category, with all the weight of our society’s ideas of motherhood upon me. I am sorting out how I mother my child, how my mother mothered me and how I fit in with the world’s idea of what a mother should be, and that is no small task. It’s also not something I can do without ambivalence, conflict, or emotion.
As I try to navigate this new terrain, I’m slowly learning that feeling conflicted does not mean that I don’t love my child. I’m coming to realize that the ubiquitous magazine and media portrayal of the ever-loving, always-happy über mom is an expression of that childish hope we all harbor for the perfect parent rather than a prescriptive formula I must follow. I’m slowly convincing myself that experiencing what I’m really feeling is better than forcing myself to “love every minute,” which only breeds resentment toward this tiny person who somehow rules my life and refuses me the complexity of human emotion. It’s still difficult to admit to myself that I don’t actually love every minute of what I do from day to day without immediately wanting to take it all back and try to be the Good Mom, the perfect blank slate onto which others can write their own impressions. I try to remember that I was psychologically complex pre-motherhood and that no one thought I was a bad person because of it.
Some kids don’t get enough to eat, no matter what people want to tell themselves. Do the math: during the rest of the year 15 million students get free or cut-rate lunches at school, and many of them get breakfast, too. But only 3 million children are getting lunches through the federal summer lunch program. And hunger in the United States, particularly since the institution of so-called welfare reform, is epidemic. The numbers are astonishing in the land of the all-you-can-eat buffet. The Agriculture Department estimated in 1999 that 12 million children were hungry or at risk of going hungry. A group of big-city mayors released a study showing that in 2000 requests for food assistance from families increased almost 20 percent, more than at any time in the last decade. And last Thanksgiving a food bank in Connecticut gave away 4,000 more turkeys than the year before — and still ran out of birds.
But while the Christmas holidays make for heart-rending copy, summer is really ground zero in the battle tokeep kids fed. The school-lunch program, begun in the 1970s as a result of bipartisan federal legislation, has been by most measures an enormous success. For lots of poor families it’s become a way to count on getting at least one decent meal into their children, and when it disappears it’s catastrophic. Those who work at America’s Second Harvest, the biggest nonprofit supply source for food banks, talk of parents who go hungry themselves so their kids can eat, who put off paying utility and phone bills, who insist their children attent remedial summer-school programs simply so they can get a meal.
–Anna Quindlen, “School’s Out for Summer,” Newsweek June 18, 2001
Most of these families are not homeless or jobless; they are minimum-wage workers who can’t afford enough food on their salaries. Quindlen wrote, “For a significant number of Americans, the cost of an additional meal for two school-age children for the eight weeks of summer vacation seems like a small fortune.” Some won’t seek government assistance because of the stigma associated with it. Others don’t know they qualify. The process of filling out a 12-page application is overly daunting. (Having helped clients through the byzantine process of applying, it is may not be perceived as worth the effort. One client of mine was receiving $540 a month of Social Security Disability, yet she still only qualified for $12 of food assistance per month.)
While one could argue that we as a democracy should provide better support for citizens, attempting to do so through official governmental channels is cumbersome and ineffective. You have the power to make a difference in a very tangible way. Go shopping and bring your purchases to a local food bank. Donate money in the summer and not just at holiday time.
The National Association of Letter Carriers held its food drive a couple of Saturdays ago. In the past decade, they have collected 586,800,000 pounds of food during their annual drive. If you missed this opportunity, you can search for your local food bank on the America’s Second Harvest site. In Austin, the Capital Area Food Bank provides assistance to central Texas. You might also consider the Austin Sustainable Food Center; its mission is to improve access to local and affordable food.
Now here’s a thought to consider. Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days — that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls — adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. That’s ridiculous.
Less than a mile and half a week?! Wow, that is ridiculous. No wonder we’re a nation swaddled by obesity.
Before I moved to Austin, I lived in a smaller city — Syracuse, New York, my hometown. For many reasons, with finances being the primary one, I did not own a car until I was 28. I commuted to work by city bus and trekked on foot to the store, to see friends, and just for fun. Syracuse can be a bitter, snow-laden place in the winter, and it wasn’t until I moved to Texas that I realized how hardy I was from all those years of walking through such varied weather.
In 1991 I purchased my first car — an Eagle Summit manual transmission with no radio — brand new for a really good price. I dubbed her Blue Belle because she was, well, blue and small. I owned that car for 10 years and grieved when she quit. The reason I bought the car was that, in order to complete my B.A. at SUNY Oswego (50 miles from Syracuse), I had to commute to classes. And oh, how I loved the new flexibility and mobility it provided!
It was heaven.
Until I gained weight.
Thus I discovered one unwelcome consequence to driving. However, I worked at Syracuse University, which has the Carrier Dome, an enclosed stadium. Once around the promenade is one-third of a mile. Every day, I walked over on my lunch hour and power-walked three miles, rain, snow, or shine. In nice weather I walked outside. And being a smaller city, many of Syracuse’s streets are navigable; you can walk across town without putting your life on the line. I regained my fitness in short order.
Upon moving to Austin, I was struck at how auto-dependent the city is, and how unfriendly it is to pedestrians. The lack of a car makes it difficult to get to a job, given the rush hour crawl and the distances one often has to commute. (In my work at a non-profit mental health agency, I provided life skills training to clients, including teaching them how to navigate by bus. It was often an all-day affair to make a round trip from north to south Austin.)
Gradually the weight crept up again, farther than ever before. Most of the time I didn’t live in apartment communities that felt neighborly with easy access to suburban side streets. Also, with one exception I lived on the third floor, which provided an incentive to my lazy side not to venture out.
This year I’ve begun to reclaim my favorite activity. I was given a simple digital pedometer for Christmas and made a commitment to aim for between 4,000 and 6,000 steps per day. I would still prefer to live in a city where I don’t have to drive to a greenbelt for a nature hike, and where I don’t take my life in my hands crossing broad four-lane roads where people run red lights and speed over the 45 mph limit. I wish I could do more of my errands on foot, but this just isn’t how large cities are built. Still, I live in a pleasant suburb which provides ample safe walking, and my mental and physical health has improved for it.
I recently watched a Frontline episode focused on diet wars in which James Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado in Denver, mentioned the America on the Move program. The mission: generate a grassroots movement encouraging people to make healthy eating choices and engage in more physical activity, with walking being one that is accessible to most people. Every little bit helps, such as decreasing your food intake 100 calories a day and walking 2000 steps a day to start.
My interest was piqued by this program. Then I saw a McDonald’s ad; they’re hopping on the bandwagon with Go Active! happy meals which include a Stepometer (toy pedometer). I was chatting last night with Sheila at the bloggers Meetup about her Stepometer. It doesn’t sound, from her description, as though it’s very accurate. But as she said, it’s a way to see if she can make it a habit and if so, then she’ll spend money for a real pedometer. I told her I’d been thinking of writing a post about walking and promised links. So without further ado:
America’s Walking – from a PBS show, this link provides information on what a pedometer is.
The Walking Site offers good information about starting a program as well as marathon and racewalking.
America WALKs is a national coalition of local advocacy groups dedicated to promoting walkable communities. The local advocacy group is WALK Austin.
Central Texas offers lots of great hiking; find out where by visiting Austin Explorer.
Mike Dahmus is an Austin resident who is active on the Urban Transportation Commission, which aims to assess transportation needs and alternatives in Austin. He also writes a blog, Mike’s Bake-Sale Of Bile, on which you can read about his advocacy.
Well, there’s plenty of material here to inspire and guide you. I hope I’ve raised your awareness and curiosity about walking. It is one of the most natural forms of movement for us. If you incorporate a little bit more each day into your routine, you will be the better for it. Happy trails to you.
Halfway down the stairs
is a stair
where i sit.
there isn’t any
other stair
quite like
it.
i’m not at the bottom,
i’m not at the top;
so this is the stair
where
I always
stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And it isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!
You’ve been here before: It’s the bazaar next door to the sanctuary, the place all the Unitarian Universalists go after a Sunday morning service to grab a cup of fairly-traded coffee, find a friend, navigate around the card tables strewn with social-action petitions, groan about (or praise!) the choir, amend the sermon, buy a book, look for brunch partners, or lurk hoping to overhear something really interesting. The walls of the parish hall are covered with bulletins and posters for this or that committee; the brochure rack invites you to “Meet the Unitarian Universalists” and hear the voices of UU theists, humanists, Christians, feminists, and on and on. It’s a lively place — so lively, in fact, that although ministers might not want to admit it, some people in the congregation show up only for Coffee Hour.
Surely you’re thinking: What a great model for a group blog! Thanks to My Irony’s Chutney, a group of us UU bloggers have been talking for the last month about ways to expand and enrich the on-line conversation about Unitarian Universalism, liberal religion, and the UUA. Today we’re debuting Coffee Hour, an interactive group blog.
I identified as and attended a UU church for several years before moving to Austin; since moving here I’ve visited Live Oak Unitarian Universalist and First UU. While I don’t attend or formally identify myself as such, if I were to be categorized religiously, this would be the most likely spot for me. I’m pleased to see an online community blog established!
Euan mentioned a conversation he had with another blogger who was deeply disturbed by the images of Nick Berg’s execution. He then made an observation:
I know I have written about this before but yet again I was struck that, bizarrely, I have at least as much compassion for the perpetrators of such acts as their victims.
With any luck, until their untimely death, the victims will have had happy, joyous lives and inhabited a world of love and relationship. Yes they have died a horrible death but now it is over. The perpetrators on the other hand must exist in a world of absolute horror, terror and alienation and their living hell continues.
It is inconceivable to me to inhabit a world where such acts of cold blooded cruelty are OK and I find myself feeling for sorry for people who have created such a living hell for themselves.
I can, abstractly and intellectually, align myself with his position. Having seen the video of the murder, however, I am a long way from feeling it in my soul. Still, it seems worthwhile to attempt, or at least consider.
