* Define immortality. Who is immortal? What makes a person immortal? Why do we seem to be so smitten with immortality? Does being famous make you immortal? Why or why not? What artifacts lend to a person's immortality -- do we need to have a recording of their music? A film? A book? A portrait? Would you like to be immortal? Will you be? (Use photos of people, current and past, who could be said to be "immortal" -- Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, JFK, Abraham Lincoln, Homer, Aristotle, MLK Jr., etc.). Have kids submit ideas of figures who are or could become immortal.
* Define quality. What is the essence of quality? Give examples of quality products, quality writing, quality thought, quality music, quality cars, quality human beings. What are some criteria for quality? What makes something less-than quality. Why does quality matter? Do standards for quality change as you get older? Think of movies you saw or books you read when you were a child; what would you think if you saw the same movie now? Have you ever re-read a book you thought was terrific, only to find it didn't live up to your memories of it?
* What does science have to do with reading and writing? What is science? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Are you indifferent to it? Why? How does a scientist think? Imagine a physicist or chemist in a lab, or a software engineer at a computer; how do they go about their work? How do their minds work? What kinds of questions must they ask? Now imagine a writer of novels; how do they go about their work? What kinds of questions must they ask? How are the two types of work the same? How different? Which is more important? Why?
Other misc. ideas for my dream English teaching classroom:
* Have a wide variety of reading materials, including things I may not love to read, but that my students might like (sports books and magazines, Popular Mechanics, stuff about cars, graphic novels, horror stories, etc.), and hopefully, a reading corner with bean bag chairs and soft lighting (no fluorescence in my reading corner!).
* My current student teaching classroom has desks that cannot be moved, because there are computers (flat screen) at each desk –– one per student –– as part of a grant. I hate it. We can't rearrange the desks into a circle for discussions, something I believe in. When I have my own classroom, I want to be able to have my students interact with each other, not simply sit with their faces buries in computer screens.
* No Garfield posters about respect or courage in my classroom! My classroom will not be cluttered with these colorful, straight-from-the-teaching-catalog posters featuring lectures in the form of cartoon characters spewing cutesy advice. No, no, no. They are just clutter. I'm not against wisdom, quotations or even virtues posted in the room, but spare me the effort at kid-friendliness. My room will have an integrated theme: where in the world are you? Where in the world are you going? (How are you going to get there?) It will be plastered with National Geographic maps, other beautiful types of maps, featuring every continent, country, state and territory on the planet –– and beyond. My English classroom will be a multidisciplinary classroom, encouraging and expecting knowledge not just of grammar and usage, but also of geography, history and society. There will be globes. My students can handle it.
I can't wait to be a teacher!!
... a laminator.
I've been realizing how helpful a laminating machine would be to have.
You see, I save a lot of things. A lot of paper things. If I had a laminator, I could laminate the important ones, thereby preserving them from the ravages of being moved from pile to pile.
In addition, having a laminator might help me determine which of my paper items are really worth keeping. While I might find it completely worthwhile to laminate a great Peanuts or Dilbert comic strip, I may realize that the article I kept from 1993 on that one violinist who discovered a particular technique for playing in fourth position would not be laminate-worthy. In the recycling bin it would go.
My laminator would save me the trouble of scrap-booking, a hobby –– I have observed –– that requires a great deal of disposable income, an additional room, and numerous totes and organizing paraphernalia (not to mention lots of time).
If I could laminate my important items, I wouldn't have to organize them by theme and create cutout borders and captions for them. They would stand alone, laminated, able to be push-pinned to a wall, or shuffled from pile to pile, or placed carefully in a not-to-be-opened-for-15-years rubber tote.
Yes. I would like a laminator.
I have gone 7 full days now without a smidgen of coffee or caffeine, and I am doing just fine. Better than fine; I'm not craving coffee anymore. As powerful as those initial cravings were, it didn't take long for them to go away completely.
Only 7 days?
I was student teaching on Friday, though, and when I went to the teacher's workroom for something, I noticed a bunch of cutout articles on the BENEFITS of drinking coffee, attached to the cupboard above the coffeemaker.
"Justifications of the addicted," I thought.
Still, just wait; if I end up having a kid, and decide after that I don't want anymore, I'll probably be right back on the coffee bandwagon.
There will come a day when I am not working full time, taking classes, looking for jobs, trying to move, helping with the family business and trying to be the best step-mom in the world.
It won't be soon.
Just an update: this is my fourth day without a drop of coffee. Not decaf, not regular, nothing. Days 1 and 2 were icky. Headaches and general out-of-it-ness.
Day 3 was just ok.
Today, I've actually felt pretty good. I never realized before how reactive I am to the smell of fresh joe brewing in the kitchenette at work. It's like I must get up and go check it out. But, not today.
I don't even think the tea is a good substitute; it doesn't fill the emptiness. It just makes me wish I had something different in my mug (ahem, coffee).
I had a good test yesterday evening; a subject I'm interviewing for a story asked if we could meet at the Coffee Grounds, my heretofore favorite local coffee shop. It smelled divine inside. But drinking coffee is not an option. I told my buddy at the counter that I've gone cold turkey, but then realized I didn't care to share the reason for it, so I just ordered some decaf hot raspberry tea. He told me I'll have to come back and check out their decaf coffee selections. We'll see. I fear it could be a slippery slope. :)
Getting bumped up to first in line at the OBGYN (there's a reason OB comes before GYN). I just had to reschedule my annual appointment because my doc had a delivery, which put her behind schedule and there were OB patients to be seen. ("They do come first," the receptionist reminded me. "Not that you're not important," she hastily added.)
Come on, baby.
I have only known two people in my life who knew what they wanted to do for a career, who then grew up and did it.
The first was my friend John Chang, who knew before he had double digits in his age that he wanted to work for Apple Computers. The kid used to put Apple stickers on everything. He loved Apple. He followed a very straight path all the way up through high school, college and graduate school, including internships that all took him right to the Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif. and that is where he is today.
The second was my friend Cathy from high school, who always knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. She did what she was supposed to do, and I was pleased to learn, at our 10-year reunion that she is a successfully practicing vet in Indy.
Both of those people were exceedingly organized, even as kids. I used to think it was funny in high school that Cathy kept a datebook in which she documented the outfit she wore each day, so that she could plan out her wardrobe weeks in advance. She was a gal who thought ahead.
Both of them needed a good deal of education to get where they wanted to be. They knew what education it took, they pursued it, and they succeeded.
Then there are people like my parents. I think my dad's dream was to be a basketball player or a racecar driver. Instead, he graduated from high school, got an entry level job at a big company in our town, and stayed there for 41 years, rising through the ranks, despite a lack of higher ed, and despite it not being "what he wanted to do." When he retired a few years ago, he had a nice pension and good retirement savings. The house he and my mom bought in 1977 is paid off and has been remodeled so that it's a really nice place to live, and they are in good health.
Mom, I don't think, ever had any particular dreams of what she wanted to be when she grew up; she was the oldest girl of six kids, and she was told from the beginning she should prepare herself to be a secretary in case her husband died someday. Mom knew she would never go to college; in her family, girls didn't get that opportunity, just the boys. She worked some office-type jobs when she was young, out of high school, then worked at the same company my dad did, until I was born. Then she stayed home and babysat kids until she retired a few years ago.
Then there's myself. (I don't write this with the thinking that I'm the *only* person to experience this; I write it because I think it is somewhat common, and because I'm trying to sort out what I *should* be doing, in light of my parents' continuing head-shaking at my lack of a linear career path.)
I couldn't ever figure out what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer, but nobody seemed to know how to help me get there. As a small kid, when I would say that, I'd get a patronizing, "Great! You can be the next Hemingway!" Even though I was small, I knew when adults were saying something they didn't mean. And as I got older, I think my writing dream was seen as something that needed to be put in a realistic context, as in, "Well, honey, you are good writer, but maybe you should pursue teaching or maybe you could be a newspaper reporter." (Ha, do you get the irony?) Being a person who wrote and published books, it turned out, was not meant for me.
The beloved writers of my youth, who thrilled and inspired me, deserved a publisher and a spot on a shelf. I did not.
For a good while, as a young teen, I wanted to be a veterinarian. It seemed the perfect career; I loved animals, I wasn't skittish about blood or other bodily things (and proved it during an unpaid stint working for our vet, when I was 13), and it would provide me with a good income (so I could write without needing it to pay, I would think).
But I struggled in the higher math classes, and felt lost in chemistry. I was so embarrassed by my lack of success in those classes that I gave up on science and math. As my parents always reminded me, "those just aren't your strong areas. Focus on what you're good at."
I wasn't bad at those subjects; I just wasn't an A+ student in them. I was more of a B+ student. If it didn't come easy, I figured it wasn't for me.
In retrospect, I blame my teachers, my parents and myself for not pushing harder to help me learn something I wanted to understand.
Throughout school, I was really good at writing, history and music, and I enjoyed those things, so that's what I pursued.
I went into college not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, but having some hazy sense that it would include music and writing, maybe teaching, maybe something humanitarian. I always figured that if I hadn't sorted it out by graduation, I'd go into the Peace Corps, something I always dreamed of.
There was no clear sense of where I should work, where I should live, what I should do. If I pursued music, it would probably be teaching music, maybe playing in a small-town symphony. If I pursued English and writing, I'd probably be a teacher (or I'd somehow magically become a writer). Humanitarian pursuits could include just about anything; I could work for a non-profit, I could be an anthropologist, I could be a social worker. I couldn't decide, though.
I was stubborn about teaching. It was interesting, but it held no prestige, I felt. Maybe college teaching, I thought. But then, I had one college advisor who told me, without really putting it this way, that I wouldn't be able to make it as a college English professor. I remember him telling me how many years it takes, how much specialization, and then, how you have to be open to going anywhere in the country there might be an opening, and THEN, how you have to work so hard for tenure and possibly not get it. It was a real discouragement. And in his warnings, this is what I heard: "You're just not good enough to do it."
I never saw myself really in an office or in anything corporate. It didn't fit me. Older generation people in my family who scoffed at my pursuing an English degree wanted to know if I was going to teach, or going to go to law school. These, apparently, were the only options remaining to me. (I still wanted to write, but was afraid to.) Dad also helpfully reminded me that I could do what he did: get an entry level administrative job in a good solid company (his favorite was Eli Lilly) and use my intelligence to rise up in the company. No thank you.
I took education classes, and I enjoyed them, but at the time, I also was spending a lot of time with my friends from other countries and I was thinking about all the other possibilities out there. I loved the other cultures; I spent a lot of time in the International housing unit, where I lived. I worked part-time in our International Affairs office. I dated men from other countries. That life, and the life of an Indiana school teacher, didn't mesh. I wanted to keep my options open. Plus, I had a couple of English profs who seemed to think I should pursue something more challenging than teaching public school. (Haha! Do you get that irony, too?)
And as for the suggestion of law school –– that was a huge laugh. Law school?? Me??? Pshaw!
I didn't feel that way because I didn't think I could do it; it was because I had no interest in it. Me? In a suit?? Advocating for one side? Hahaha!!
The result of all this wishy-washiness in college was that I earned my degree, in English Literature (not education, not pre-law, not writing concentration), and I had a very useful minor in music. (Sarcasm.)
I had already started working on my application to the Peace Corps, against my parents' wishes.
That was the plan; if I hadn't figured it all out by graduation, I was going to the Peace Corps. I completed the application, got through to the final step, up through the final in-person interview in Chicago.
My parents and I were barely speaking around that time in my life. I knew I owed them, for all they had done to raise me and educate me. I knew they expected me to do something reasonable, and that traveling to Uzbekistan to teach English for 26 months would not be within their definition of reasonable. It was a stressful time. I had been going to the university counseling center for some depression.
That's what stopped my Peace Corps app. In the medical portion of the application, I had to disclose my counseling. The Corps wanted to be certain, before sending me to an isolating experience, that I was mentally sound. My admission of some depression and counseling caused them to put my application on hold. They encouraged me to get back in touch in a year, so that they could evaluate if I'd made progress.
It was nearly May. I was getting ready to graduate from college. I had no better idea of my direction in life than I had when I started college. I had no money. My student loans would come due soon. The Peace Corps was not only delayed, but was beginning to look like it would never happen. I was in a relationship with a French African man who wanted to get married. My parents did not know about that.
I spent the next three years depressed and seeking direction. I got married. I worked at my college, in International Affairs, my dream of the Peace Corps getting further away, watching students come and go, feeling like any career path I might have developed was dissipating with the passing years. I needed to get back to school, I thought. That was the only way to get back on track, I thought. I was off track. Way off.
What the hell is wrong with me? Am I stupid? Lazy? Do I expect too much? Do I worry too much what other people think? Do I wait too long to act on opportunities? Is this something everyone goes through, and everyone just picks something and hopes for the best? Should I go back to square one and start trying to get something published? Should I stop expecting so much out of life and be happy I have a paying job? Am I stubborn? Do I not take the advice of well-meaning advisors? Have I not received the right advice?
These were some of the thoughts going through my head then (and, surprisingly, now). Not only did I have to make up for lost time, I had to redeem myself in a big way. I chose law school, much for the same reasons I *chose* English literature. I didn't so much choose it as I figured I'd be good at it, and it would magically reveal a path to me.
Most of us know what happened. The path was not revealed. The cost was high. The experience was numbing and upsetting, overall. It didn't help that I got cancer during it.
There are days now when I wish I had never gone to college, and certainly when I wish I had never gone to law school. Days when I wish I had lied on my Peace Corps app. Most of the time, I repress the painful memories, and hope that I am on the right track now.
I think now that teaching and farming are my future, but there are days when I second-guess those choices (not farming; I know I want to farm). I have never stopped wanting to write. I guess I sometimes second-guess teaching. What if I hate it? What if I'm no good at it? What if some psycho kid kills me during a shootout? (Yes, paranoia and anxiety are two of my really attractive traits.)
There are times when the path seems crystal clear: farm, teach, write. I really hope I am getting closer to it. The murkiness of my path is an embarrassment to me, even though I know that many people struggle with their career goals.
There are no answers.
To say I've learned a lot about farming over the past few years would be an understatement. It all started during a serendipitous visit to Trader's Point Creamery in Zionsville, during the winter of 2004. I was bald from chemo, although the wisps were returning. I had switched to organic milk, meat and eggs because of my cancer diagnosis. And I had gone to have dinner with some elderly friends of mine in Indy, who I met through a strange series of coincidences and odd situations several years earlier.
The husband, Tom, is an engineer who had created quite an enterprise for himself and his family, and had gotten the contract to put in all the stainless steel fixtures at the creamery, back when the dairy was just starting up (2001, 2002). And during his work there, he became a friend of the family who runs the creamery, as well as a die-hard advocate of organic milk and dairy products.
During our dinner that fateful winter in early 2004, Tom offered to take me to the creamery for a tour. We set it up, and after my first visit there, I, too, became an advocate not only for organic milk and dairy and meat, but also an advocate for the kind of life the Kunz family created there –– a farming life.
Fast forward a year, and I was spending my summer volunteering once a week at the Kunz' creamery at Trader's Point (while I should have been studying harder for the bar exam, probably).
Let me tell you, I loved being on the farm. Just as I had proven to myself that my love for being in nurseries and greenhouses extended beyond just cruising them as a customer, I learned that I felt really at home behind the scenes on the farm.
Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, getting dirty, sweating, driving the farm vehicles and being surrounded by animals and plants and the smells of hay and vegetation was the kind of life I could see myself living.
I didn't want to be a corn farmer –– I didn't want to be what many of the Indiana "farmers" are: landowners who work their land a total of a couple of weeks out of the year, spraying pesticide and herbicide in massive quantities to create a "clean" slate, running their huge machinery over the land to till it and plant, hoping for the best in terms of rain, and then driving their massive combines in the fall to harvest. To me, that is not farming. That method treats the land like an unruly child slave; beat it into submission, set it to work, neglect it for months, then check on its progress.
I wanted to be the type of farmer who actually holds the seeds in her hand, who holds the dirt in her hand, who uses her muscles to turn the soil, drops the seeds in, toils over them, day in, day out, irrigates them, protects them from pests and weeds naturally, knows her crops, knows her fields and knows the seasons. I wanted to be the type of farmer who treats the land as a respected colleague or elder, being with it daily to work with it and learn from it.
Fish and I have debated what to call ourselves, because we want to distinguish ourselves from corn farmers; should we call ourselves growers? But really, we are entitled to the word "farmer." If anyone should not be allowed to call themselves that, it would be the industrial corn ... uh ... developers (?).
For the record, I did not grow up anywhere near a farm. My parents lived in a tidy little house in a suburb of a mid-sized Hoosier city, and the closest we ever got to farming was growing a few tomatoes each summer. Although one of my brothers and I had a bizarre love of animals (bringing home every stray ANYTHING we found, nurturing abandoned baby animals til they died, examining odd insects, etc.), my parents were sort of germ-o-phobes who considered stuff "outside" to be mostly yucky and unfit for human involvement. When my mother plants a flower, she wears every type of protective glove and gear to keep from coming in contact with dirt. Don't get me wrong, she is good at house plants, but that's about as far as she is willing to go.
So, I didn't know how I would get to the point of being a farmer. Especially since I had prepared my entire life to be someone who works in an office or in front of a classroom. I kind of figured you had to be born a farmer, be married to a farmer, or otherwise have special farmer training. How in the world was I going to get from point A to point B?
For the Kunz family, the transition from modern family to farming enterprise was a really lucky one; the wife inherited a ton of land (hundreds of acres), and the husband is a surgeon. So they had money and land to start out. Unless I intended to marry a very wealthy person (I didn't) or learned of some long lost relative who wanted to give me a bunch of acreage, that wasn't going to happen to me.
And I knew that even if I continued practicing law, I was going to be a middle-class lawyer. I tended to go for the type of work that didn't pay all that well.
I sort of entertained the idea in my mind that I would make an effort to meet a person who would want to be a farmer with me; because my image of me on the farm included a man, a partner, a best friend –– a husband. I was hoping that he would have the same image and dream, of a wife who wouldn't just hang out in the farmhouse making bread, but who would actually be out in the horse poo and compost. If I met a person like that, and he and I shared the dream, we'd find a way. Blind optimism, anyone?
But it has worked! Here we are, just a couple of years from my stint at Trader's Point; I am married to Fish, who is the biggest lover of growing things I've ever met. We have a tractor –– a small one (30 horse power). We are able to realize thousands of dollars from each acre we work. And we're looking at being on about 13 acres in the coming year. (That's another story!)
And lest that part up there came across as sort of an unromantic way to find a life partner, let me assure you, I am in love with my husband, not just for his farming skills. He's one helluva good man, and handsome in ways that most people can't see.
One thing I've definitely embraced is the idea that I don't need anyone's permission or blessing to call myself a farmer. I don't need a degree from Purdue, or an inheritance, and I certainly don't need hundreds of acres. Corn farmers need hundreds (thousands!) of acres so they can realize any profit from the land they use. And I think in a way, they've industrialized it to the point that farming has become intimidating to regular people. It used to be that everyone grew a small plot of veggies each season; they knew how to do it and they weren't afraid of it.
It works well for us that people no longer have time or knowledge to farm; it has become a specialty for farmers to grow common vegetables (people often seem amazed at our farm stand to find celery, or broccoli, or potatoes) –– "You grew that?" they say. And this is in Indiana, a place that is perfect for growing stuff! But nowadays, when citrus fruits and coconuts share grocery store space with apples, pears and celery, how are people to know what is a native crop and what is only cultivable in other places? When everything comes off a truck from somewhere else, and there is no knowledge being passed down from parents, why wouldn't people be surprised to find that potatoes grow in the ground, right here, and are dug up, and taste wonderful?
I don't blame people for not being growers; they've never been taught. I do feel bad for people who never had any opportunity to be around the old type of farms, who may not know that they would love growing things.
We hear a lot of people say things like, "Oh, I can't grow things, I just don't have the knack," as if it were magic –– as if you just drop a seed somewhere, pour some water and pray. There are methods, time-tested, natural, science-based methods for growing –– and those methods are not found in the Farmer's Almanac (a publication that Fish abhors).
I have entertained the idea of having a farming camp for kids in the summer; a day camp, where kids can come to learn propagation methods, irrigation, natural pest and weed control, natural fertilization, earning potential of acreage, soil type and soil amendment, and even the history of farming. I love the fact that our kids recognize crops by their leaves. I think all kids should have that ability, or at least the opportunity to know if they would enjoy having that ability.
Anyway, I have learned a ton about farming; I love farming. I hope I will always be healthy enough to do it, and I hope that I can pass on some of my passion for it to another generation or two.
It's official. If I want to get pregnant, I really, truly have to give up coffee. Here's the most recent word on the subject.
The focus now is on caffeine's role in miscarriage, but the research on caffeine and fertility is equally disturbing.
My coffee...uh...problem has all the signs of being a full-blown addiction. It's one of the first things I think about when I wake up. When I am emotional or feeling stumped at work, I go straight for the coffee. I keep telling myself I can quit anytime I want to. I am surrounded by mugs and other coffee paraphernalia. Despite my confession regarding the breakfast menu at McDonald's, I must admit that if it weren't for the coffee there, I'd have little incentive to go. When I try to define happiness, it usually includes me holding a mug of coffee. My mother said she used to feel the same way about cigarettes, when she was addicted.
And though I tell myself it's all about the flavor (and only slightly about the effects), somehow the thought of a cup of decaf just holds no interest for me. My dad keeps telling me if I really cared just about the flavor, I would be okay with switching to decaf. Hmm. I don't know.
Yesterday, I bought a couple of boxes of decaf tea bags for work. Incidentally, you should see my stash of tea bags at home, from other efforts at curbing my addiction.
I had a raging headache yesterday, but managed to get through it. It wasn't even so much the physical pain as the sense of emptiness; I felt off all day. Not a single cup of coffee; no steaming, fragrant dream-in-a-mug beverage –– just the woefully inadequate stand-in: tea.
I even had an imaginary conversation with my unborn (unconceived) child on the way to work. In it, I imagined telling her how grateful she should be –– for this incredible, unbearable sacrifice on my part.
And as we are having this imaginary conversation –– my future child and I –– I imagine myself sipping on a big mug of dark roast, two creams, hold the sugar.
It's a good day when you realize the healthy nut mix you bought to handle mid-day hunger pangs actually includes DARK CHOCOLATE COVERED SOYNUTS and HONEY ROASTED SESAME STICKS!
I was sitting here at my desk contemplating the nearly inevitable trip to the vending machine for something sweet; resenting the container of nuts I bought hastily this morning, (because I knew they would be better for me than anything in the vending machine). I also thought I had gotten a standard almond-pecan-walnut mix. I was thinking how I should have bought myself something kind of sweet and healthy.
I grudgingly pulled the nut mix out of my bag to take a look, and lo and behold!! It has sweet chocolate and honey-raosted sesame sticks! Yay!
It really takes so little...
... I was thinking how much fun it would be to start a club. I would call it the "Happy Moral Atheists Club."
We would meet on a regular basis to talk about books and music and art and science and history. We would eat together and drink together and laugh a lot. We would have a club garden, and we'd have outings to the state parks, and sometimes we would go roller skating.
We would not bash "In God We Trust" license plates, nor would we be atheist apologists –– we wouldn't sit around all day being bitter about religious people, or trying to convince religious people to join us, or making fun of religious people.
We would just be a social club of non-religious people who hang out and don't feel guilty about things.
We would meditate on the human experience, if we wanted. We would have problem-solving groups on how to make our society a better one –– how to approach problems in education, poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence.
We would give awards each month for the best essays written by our members.
Our heroes would be Thomas Jefferson, Eugene Debs, Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut, and others I have yet to determine.
Of course, it wouldn't all be up to me. As freethinkers, we'd have a very democratic club.
Now I just need a clubhouse, and another lifetime or two.
Remember the awkward moment I described from last Sunday, regarding my interviews of the pastors?
I was not surprised to find on my desk a letter from one of those churches today when I came in. I also was not surprised to read the following paragraph, about halfway down:
"Deb, I remember you saying you are not a believer now. If you ever want to talk about faith issues or have a conversation about church, I'll be happy to talk with you. I'll buy the coffee … or, if you'd rather talk with a woman, there are several wonderful ladies I know that can provide both a listening ear and delightful conversation."
"That poor newspaper reporter," I imagine the pastor thinking. "She's been brainwashed by the liberal media. She needs someone to reach out to her."
Fish suggested I write a nice letter back to him, thanking him for those opportunities and being sure to invite him for coffee sometime, if he'd like to talk with me about reason and reality, critical thinking, thinking for oneself, how I spend my Sunday mornings, or anything else.
I have to post this link, because it sums up a lot of what I think: Cheerful Atheist.
I've changed my mind. I'm good at that.
Prince is a sweet horse. I visited with him again Saturday; he let me brush him. He nuzzled me and seemed content to stand and enjoy the attention.
But I had a moment of clarity, in which I realized:
I'll probably get another horse someday, hopefully a yearling mustang I can train and gentle myself, but now is not the time. It's a shame his owners abandoned him; it's a shame he's got no one to love him and train him. But, like the thousands of animals in shelters and on the streets, he is a victim I cannot rescue.
I have to be really careful and be smart about things like this, because Fish's number one desire, as he always says, is to make me happy. Well, and to make his kids happy. If I asked him for Prince, he would have made it happen.
Okay, so quick update: I got home last night and the garbage can was back in my yard! I didn't know whether to be happy about that or disappointed that I don't get to try out my clown hat/cape/galoshes scenario. Ha!
But the real reason for this post is a new friend I made today. He's about 6' 5", with deep brown eyes and black hair; he already has nuzzled my face, eaten out of my hand, and we've engaged in some heavy petting.
Don't worry, I'm not leaving Fish. The new apple of my eye is a 9-year-old, 900 lb. beauty named Prince. He's a Tennessee-Walker mix, and has been abandoned by his former owners at the horse farm.
We learned about him last week; I knew he was boarded at the same farm as Little Bit, but I'd never spent any time with him. He belonged to another family. But we got an email a couple of days ago from the owner of the farm, saying she was going to sell him because he'd been abandoned (family hadn't paid board for months and months, and hadn't been to see the poor guy in a very long time).
When I went out today with Caitlin to see Little, I had to go visit Prince. He seemed starved for attention and spent a lot of time with me; of course, it helped that I had apple treats.
I talked to Jane, the owner of the farm, and she said she had sent a last resort letter by certified mail to the owners; and if she doesn't hear back by Tuesday, he's up for sale.
So, I made the mistake of getting a little enamored of those big brown eyes; and the others at the farm didn't help. Autumn, who is Caitlin's 13-year-old friend and horse-owner buddy, kept saying, "Prince chose you, he hasn't let anybody pet him for a long time."
Don't know if it's possible; have to take a hard look at the budget, and at my schedule (no point in buying a horse if I never have opportunities to go out and work with him.)
It's so easy to think about becoming a horse person. I love the barns, the horses, the smells, the calm, and I absolutely love the feeling of standing right in the nook of a horse's withers, one hand up on his neck and the other on his back or side, while he stands there enjoying the attention.
I love beautiful horses, but even though most of the horses at the farm are wild mustangs and mixed breeds (not usually having the most gorgeous conformation), they make up for it in sweetness and heart.
I'll know in a few days.
I'm a big baby.
How dare depression strike when my garbage can has rolled into the neighbor's yard, when the litter pans need cleaned out, the kids are melting down, my car needs a new tie rod, and I'm writing the A1 story for Sunday!
I don't have time to be in the dumps. I don't have a good reason for being in the dumps. I am pissed off at the dumps, which makes me feel even more in the dumps.
And this all gives me an idea.
I need to personify my depression. Create a little character, give him a name; draw a picture of him, all snaggle-toothed and bitter and snotty.
Then when he comes, welcome him in, as Rumi says, "meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in." (The Guest House)
And then beat the crap out of him.
Am I strong enough to laugh at my depression? Can I turn self-pity and bitterness into glee?
I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm not a happy-go-lucky, funny-funny witty person. I wish I was. How do you get that? I know it's better to find humor in some of the tough situations in life, but how?
I managed it during chemo sometimes; after all, it really is funny when you're so hopped up on intravenous Benadryl you don't even know you're drooling and trying to make new friends at the same time.
But unfortunately, I was brought up in a house of worriers -- serious worriers. It takes a real effort for me to be lighthearted, most of the time.
Why was it so easy to joke about mastectomy scars, yet now I spiral into a fetal-position-inducing depression when my dishes have piled up and I haven't mopped the kitchen floor for a couple weeks?
Maybe because, with the cancer, everyone around me was in such a state of (unwarranted? over-the-top?) fear and concern for me that it was almost like somebody HAD to take the edge off. And, in fact, some of that fear and concern was funny in light of the reality (I was going to be okay, I just had to endure some weird treatment and side effects.)
In that situation, you're surrounded by people trying to help make things easier. And nobody can say that you're in that situation due to any fault of your own.
You become a blameless victim of a bad foe, and you have lots of cheerleaders.
But when your dishes are piled up, it's just embarrassing, and shameful, and nobody's fault but your own. And when your work isn't getting done, you're to blame. When you've got issues with your kids, and their mom, and other family members, there's no loving, comforting doctor coming to your rescue with options. No MRI can diagnose your problems, and there's no drug that can be taken. You have to fix it with willpower, hard work, problem-solving skills and organization.
And when the wind takes your garbage can over to the neighbor's yard, you've got to put your shoes on, walk across the street, and carry it back home.
Maybe embracing the ridiculous is the way -- maybe tonight, when I get home from work, I'll put on my big colorful clown hat, tie a cape to my back, and gallop across the street to retrieve my garbage can.
It may be the only way to beat the crap out of this depression. Or I'll end up in a mental institution. One or the other.
I really like the people I work with. They are smart, kind, professional, and all-around decent folk.
But –– you knew that was coming –– I have one colleague who sits within earshot who sets my teeth on edge with a couple of phrases he uses compulsively:
"Quick question" and "Real quick."
Let's call this colleague Ambrose.
When Ambrose is calling a subject for a story, to ask them a question or conduct an interview, the conversation goes like this:
AMBROSE: "Hello, Mr. Smith? Real quick, I wanted to ask you about that tax issue blah blah blah."
–– or ––
AMBROSE: "Hey, Mr. Jones, quick question. During the most recent municipal primary blah blah blah."
The habit flows over into communications within the newsroom as well.
To our editor, Ambrose will say, "Hey, Editor, quick question." Or, he'll pop over my cubicle, saying, "Hey, Deb, quick question," or "Deb,real quick..."
What makes this little habit more inane is that there is nothing about the way Ambrose asks a question or makes a comment that could be construed in any way as "quick." In fact, of all my colleagues, his tortured efforts at making himself understood are painfully –– oh, so painfully –– drawn-out.
I have toyed with the idea of revealing Ambrose's habit to him, in a kind way, and suggesting he try to keep track of it, but I fear it would cause him to begin convulsing with apologies. He's a very sweet person who is ever concerned that he is being a bother to others.
Anyway, real quick, let me get this blog posted so I can get back to work.
Now, when I die, at my funeral, don't anyone say, "She never said a negative thing about anyone ever." Because I just did. :P
Although it goes against most of my principles for myself –– eating well, supporting local business, slow food movement, organic food –– I have a habit that I must confess.
I am a McDonald's breakfast addict.
Not only am I in love with Egg McMuffins (hold the Canadian Bacon), I am in love with McDonald's coffee, orange juice, and –– more recently –– the sausage burrito (only 290 calories!). I don't have Big Mac attacks (rarely eat there for lunch or dinner), but when I get a McMuffin craving, there is nothing that can calm me like a round slab of egg on an English muffin with a melty slice of American cheese.
Because I am often running a bit behind in the mornings, and because my favorite McD's is about halfway between my office and the courthouse, I have developed a serious habit.
This is how bad it is: the ladies, and this one guy, at the drive-through window know me, and if they don't see me for a day or two, they ask me where I've been.
I justify my habit in many ways; I'm not too concerned about weight gain from it –– I choose relatively low-calorie items, never put sugar in my coffee, and usually just get one sausage burrito (not the TWO that come with the combo meal...who can eat two at once?). I never eat their hash browns.
However, I do get concerned about the fact that it is very anti-organic. At home I only eat organic eggs and milk. At McD's, I'm taking chances. The eggs are most definitely not organic; same goes for the cream in my coffee (2, please). This increases my risk of bad cholesterol AND hormone intake.
And then there is the ethical concern; McDonald's is the Wal-Mart of dining out. Huge, national chain, responsible for lots of waste and stuff. But I don't really know much about this. Is McDonald's really an unethical business? I don't know. I love McDonald's, I really do.
I sometimes wonder if they don't put crack in their food.
Today reminded me of England.
It was a not-warm – but not-cool – blustery day, not really rainy, but the streets and sidewalks all were wet. It seems like it always looked and felt like that when I lived in Oxford. Damp. Windy. The streets so saturated with drizzle that they could never properly dry.
When I lived there, I rented a bicycle that I rode all over Oxfordshire. It had a little basket in the front, and a little basket in the back, and usually I carried my books, my groceries, whatever. It was not common then for students and regular people to have cell phones, which I remember now with some surprise. I had no computer. Just lots of notebooks, lots of pens, a shortwave radio, a cassette player, and a library card to the Bodleian.
I lived just at the edge of Oxford proper, in a dormitory at St. Catherine's College, and when I'd return to college, the porter –– a little bald spritely man who manned the front desk –– would say, "Hallooo Debs!"
There was a bookstore I went to for purchasing the few books I actually bought during my six-month stint there. I remember it was in an old, old building –– hundreds of years old. The door was ancient, and set crookedly in its frame, a heavy wooden door, carved and painted black. It set up a step from the pavement, and inside, it was as if each long little room had been stuck together as an afterthought –– it was always crowded and seemed like if you just kept walking around, you'd discover another room of books, and another.
I bought a large volume of Tennyson there, with a pink cover and a print of Ophelia on the cover –– a volume so large, actually, that I had to leave it behind when I left. I recently bought the same edition, for sentimentality and so that, some quiet afternoon, I can sit in my room alone, with a cup of tea and "In Memoriam, A.H.H." and read it and cry, the way my tutor suggested and the way I did back then.
I remember she told me, set aside an afternoon –– plan nothing else for three or four hours –– get yourself plenty of tea, and a nice comfy blanket to wrap up in. Don't take notes. Don't sit at table. Just you and the poem and your tea and some tissues.
In my mind, I scoffed a little, when she suggested that. I am a fairly emotional person, and get weepy at some movies and even some books in which I am invested, but a poem? Written 150 years earlier, in a different kind of English, about the death of a man's friend? I thought, I will try to do what you say, but I don't know.
But she was right. I tried it. And I cried. And never felt the same way about Tennyson ever again.
It wasn't all just sitting around brooding over literature and sipping tea.
There was rowing –– a sport I'd never tried, but became somewhat proficient at –– and there was football (although the "Birds" –– women –– endured a bit of teasing from the men, who believed soccer, like all other sports, was for men only, and that women could putz around at it, but couldn't be taken seriously), and there was tango, which I learned at the Oxford Community Centre on Saturday nights on Iffley Road (or was it Cowley Road?). There were the pubs, the clubs, and of course, the grub. There were the trips to London –– about an hour away by bus –– and one insanely beautiful train ride to the end of the world (actually, Penzance).
It was a lonely, homesick time for me, and I was mourning the loss of a man I loved (God, when in my life haven't I been mourning lost love?), and I haven't been back since that spring and summer of 1998 –– damn, 10 years! ––
But what a time! What a beautiful, mysterious, ancient place and what an honor to attend that University, even if I often felt like an imposter.
I'm tempted to go home and read In Memoriam, while the streets are still damp.
Awkward.
Had to cover an assignment tonight regarding church unity; it was lovely. It was inside a beautiful Catholic sanctuary. It involved a bunch of different denominations and their pastors. I enjoyed the hymns, and sang along heartily with the ones I knew.
I had to interview a couple of pastors afterward.
Each asked me my religion.
One said it like this: "Do you have a church home?"
The other asked, "Are you Protestant or Catholic?"
Both looked surprised (speechless?) when I said, "I am not a Christian." I followed it up, to one of them who seemed to expect more, with, "I am just not a believer."
I no longer apologize nor try to explain that, even though it's in my nature to try to put them at ease, and I tend to want to explain. But, really, what else is there to say? I don't believe in what you believe in.
I think what bothers them -- maybe more than my statement that I'm not a Christian -- is the fact that I do not attach any other label to myself to fill in the spiritual blank, though they do seem to expect me to. The unspoken question hangs between us:
"So ... what are you?"
I'm nothing. I have no answers. I may be an atheist, but I don't really know, so I don't say what I am. I don't know.
I am just a human floating around trying to sort out fact from fiction, and not coming to very many conclusions.
Sometimes, I think Christian pastors and Christians want to find your window –– the one (or more) weaknesses you have, or the one or more traumas you've experienced through which they can explain how much better it would be for you if you could just buy into God and Jesus.
I am so full of weakness, so very flawed and, although my traumas are few and minor, I've had some moments. Yet, I survive. I go on, without praying about it, without expecting some divine explanation, without believing there must have been a great Reason.
Do you know how many times an evangelical has tried to reach me? It used to make me mad, but now it's just awkward. I don't want to say what they don't want to hear. But I can't say anything else.
I won't be so arrogant as to say, "I don't need God," because believe me, if I thought He was there -- if I thought He had anything to do with me, if I thought He existed -- I'd need Him. I'd like him a lot.
I think we've been made to believe that, if you really could just get in touch with yourself, you'd realize you need God; you'd give into the idea He exists; you'd "soften your heart," to use a Christian expression.
Because, of course, those of us who are not practicing Christians simply must have hard hearts, bad attitudes toward the whole thing, or we must be "angry" with God.
"I stopped believing in God when my parents divorced," I heard one man say.
But he didn't mean he stopped believing; he meant he stopped speaking to God. He meant he was angry with God...he still fully believed the Big Man was up there, looking down, waiting for the temper tantrum to end. And this guy seemed almost to know that he would keep up his silence and anger for awhile, then at some point return to the fold. Because he still believed there was a fold, and a shepherd, and a Place where we all go after we die, if we're good.
I went through that. An angry phase -- I was mad at God, and mad at all the people who liked Him. I didn't like certain things about Him, so I just avoided him. That phase lasted at least 10 years, from the time I was 17 to the time I was 27 or 28. Maybe even up until I was 29 or 30. Maybe I still carry vestiges of it, because the little bit of me that once believed in Him isn't completely gone.
So, I think that's what people think; when I say I'm not a Christian, or when I say I don't believe, or that I don't go to church; they just think I'm mad and I'll come around. But I guess I probably won't, and sometimes I feel sad about it.
But I think I'm a more peaceful person, now; I'm not angry that there's no God. I'm not angry with other human beings (okay, I'm angry with some of them). I like other human beings, and I want us all to have a good time, and I want us all to treat each other well, and I really hope we all can have some peace together. I want us to learn things and make music and art, and figure out how to fix problems. But I really don't think there is anybody there to help us with it or to care. I don't think He is.
I miss God, sometimes. I miss the hymns, and I miss the beautiful sanctuaries.
I wish there could be sanctuaries and hymns about things that are real. I sometimes wonder what that would be like.
One of my favorite online magazines is Edge at www.edge.com. It is devoted to philosophy and science, and has some of the most throught-provoking pieces and writers you can read anywhere.
At the beginning of each new year, Edge puts forth a philosophical question for readers to ponder, and usually puts that question in some sort of context. Here is this year's question:
----------------------------------------------------
THE EDGE ANNUAL QUESTION - 2008
----------
When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.
WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?
Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?"
I will be pondering and hopefully posting my answer or answers at some later date.
If you haven't read Edge and you like philosophy and/or science, check it out.
Wow, I was so afraid to hope he'd win Iowa -- but kept hoping! I was shocked to see Hill in third, if barely. I thought sure she'd get second.
Obama's speech last night -- like almost all his speeches -- gave me chills and hope again.
Read my friend Sarah's first-hand caucus experience (she just moved to Iowa this year, the lucky girl!).
To my coworker who keeps calling Obama "Osama" and joking that no one will ever be able to say his name, pbbbbllllltttt!! (that's me with my tongue out, thumbs in my ears, fingers waggling!) To my coworkers and friends who used to go, "who?" when I would say Obama, pbbblllltttt! And to my coworker who hung the photocopied image of Obama without his hand over his heart, pbbllllttt!!
Onward, Obama!
Fish has told me part of the reason he liked the fact I'd had cancer (as much as anyone can "like" a loved one's brush with death and destruction) was that he assumed it would mean I was pretty much unflappable in the face of lesser concerns -- like, if I managed to survive mentally and emotionally (not to mention physically), then nothing could get me down.
First, I think it's worth noting that I did not pounce up and down on cancer like the prize-fighting powerhouse many seemed to perceive me to be. If you followed along that period in my life, you will see there was much depression, much fear, and some efforts at being brave.
Second, as I have often noted, I think many types of cancer have become diseases that are so well-managed by the medical profession that the ultimate fear -- death -- can be pushed down on the list of fears. A cancer diagnosis anymore rarely means it's time to write your will; more likely it means you're going to spend some time feeling like crap, looking pretty bad and taking some time off. And hopefully, at the end of it, you'll have a mostly-clean bill of health and the assurance of a few more (maybe dozens more) years to live. How is that so different from the old days of Scarlet Fever?
I don't want to undermine anyone's struggle -- God knows I was terrified and sad during my bout with it -- and for sure, there are some nasty, aggressive, fatal, chronic cancers. But I'll tell you, if I had to choose between what I went through and what a Multiple Sclerosis patient goes through, for instance, I would take my cancer again. (That's not a request, you great Universal Dice Rollers and gods.)
But despite all that, if I look back at that time, objectively, and if I read my old blog entries as a stranger reading them, I realize how much it was to deal with. And I think Fish is right, that I've got to remember what it all felt like, to keep the sense that pretty much everything else is happy, easy, and good.
I just re-read my blog entry about the day of my diagnosis, and it brought it all back: how unprepared I was for the news that I got, how completely in another world I was living at the time (but is anyone ever really waiting for and expecting to start living the life of a cancer patient?), and how surreal it all was.
And yet, through the lens of time, that most surreal moment was, in many ways, the most real moment of my life -- the most crystallizing, the most "wake-the-f-UP", the most you-can-never-turn-back -- day. And as hard as I tried for the next year to turn it back, to hit rewind and pretend like it would just be a blip, a bump, a detour, that could never happen.
In so many ways, that single moment is what sent the ripples out that brought me to Fish, that brought me to the work I want to do and the life I want to live. It is why we grow food and it is why we spend so much time with family, it is why I seek out meaningful life experiences, and even why I have to analyze it all so carefully.
It is why I don't worry too much if I go to work late, or take a personal day, or if I put family and health before ambition.
It's why I picture myself, in a couple of years, walking up and down the rows of our greenhouses, baby on my back, cats at my feet, kids and horses out in the pasture, sunflowers bordering it all, and my love walking next to me, stooping to examine a leaf or bug.
I'm so, so glad I got cancer.
I re-posted my blog archive -- it's here.
It is 2008. In September of this year, it will be five years - FIVE YEARS - since my cancer diagnosis.
I know how much has happened since then: law school, recovery, new job, moving back home, meeting my husband, getting married, adopting two cats -- but -- FIVE YEARS?
I think it's fun to go back and read my old blog entries from when I first started blogging, two weeks after the diagnosis.