aimless love

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. billy collins

Thursday, December 21, 2006

dizzy, I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning...

I love that song...ok, not really, it's annoying, but I really am ditzy. I mean dizzy with Xmas and trying to prepare for the spring semester and with generally feeling really anxious about going back to work.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to send out Christmas cards - and instead of a little "brag" letter this year (although honestly, I've tried not to make them too boastful), I am including this poem. It's not meant to be cryptic, just sufficiently devoid of details so as not to embarrass the little people/teens. If you have the patience, I'm putting the brag letter I won't be sending out below the poem.

Growing up

in our cozy home
things still
appear
grow
change

not plants
but people
and ideas
and convictions

learning geometry proofs
and world capitals
also
how to
read the map of each others’ hearts

we learn scales
and f-stops
remembering the map
is not the same as the terrain

remembering that now
is not then

On the horizon
empty nests appear to take shape

Vision becomes blurred
and sharpened

as some reach forward
while others reach back

as love binds what time steals

- Christmas 2006

Christmas letter version #1:

December 19, 2006

Well, we added two more stadiums to our baseball stadium quest this year. In early June, we drove to Cleveland, OH and Pittsburgh, PA. While there, we not only enjoyed the baseball, but the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

S has done a great job of transitioning to B High this year. He spends even more time than ever with friends, still sings in the choir and is preparing for a chorus trip to Spain in April 07.

K was on sabbatical this fall – and although she didn’t complete her dissertation, she did “advance to candidacy.” Basically this means her proposal was approved and now she can officially collect her data. It also means, that she’ll spend one more summer (07) working on the dissertation, but then by Christmas next year she should be done! Say a prayer! Sabbatical also meant starting cello, joining the Daughters of Abraham, and going to the art therapy conference in New Orleans in Nov.

M has officially decided that bassoon was only a phase, and that next year she will NOT be playing it! While it lasted she was able to earn several bassoon awards and did Music on the Hill this past summer. She continues to be a big SIMS fan, and is wondering if architecture or interior design is the career for her.

P continues to do full-time solo practice in B. He’s still sailing, has invested a bit more in photography, and has been running consistently all year.

It’s been a full year, and we continue to look for ways to live out a sense of social conscience despite all our privileges. We don't have babies or dogs to keep us honest, but as we all try-on "adulthood" we know that there is more to life than accumulating more.

...anyway, that's when I starting thinking there was no way I could really pull it off.

Here's Christmas letter version #2 which let's just say was a tad angry...

December 19, 2006

Our year hasn’t seen much of a change in our social consciousness – I can honestly say that despite the intensity of our trip to El Salvador last year, no significant changes have been made by our family to become part of the global solution. If anything we’ve become even more consumerist and driven to own and numb ourselves from awareness of a larger consciousness.

S started at B High this year. He spends even more time than ever with friends, still sings in the choir and is preparing for a chorus trip to Spain in April 07.

K was on sabbatical this fall – and although she didn’t complete her dissertation, she did “advance to candidacy.” Basically this means her proposal was approved and now she can officially collect her data. It also means, that she’ll spend one more summer (07) working on the dissertation, but then by Christmas next year she should be done! Sabbatical also meant starting cello, joining the Daughters of Abraham, and going to the art therapy conference in New Orleans in Nov.

M has officially decided that bassoon was only a phase, and that next year she will NOT be playing it! She’s also not sure that C Middle School is in the cards for next year, and has decided to apply to private schools.

P continues to do full-time solo practice in B. He’s still sailing, has invested a bit more in photography, and has been running consistently all year.

anyway... expect to see the poem in your cards instead of the letter... only you know why!

Monday, December 11, 2006

I'd rather be angry

ok... so being brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous sounded good on Sat, but today it sounds like crap!

my daughter has decided to apply to private schools, and I have to tell you I'm sickened by the craziness of a culture that even sells education!!!! "Give me $30,000 a year and I will give your kid a great education!" Meanwhile, all the rest of y'all just fight it out - if you're lucky enough to have a stimulating home and a bright kid who gets along socially and you live in a wealthy suburb, your school is good. If you happen to be in an urban environment and can't afford much, too bad.

How am I going to be able to live with THIS?!

It just keeps getting more challenging to feel a sense of integrity and self-cohesion!

oh, did I mention we're getting cable and a wide-screen TV for Christmas! what other fundamental compromises are left to make?

Saturday, December 9, 2006

being brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous

so I spent an hour this morning reading back over the entries of this blog - as I get closer to the end of my sabbatical I'm increasingly feeling the need to justify the time, to know that I didn't waste it, to feel that I'll be going back with something to show for it all.

I like seeing the progression of the course I'm now working on developing and of the performance piece, but seeing the process of waiting for the proposal to be approved is painful! I cannot believe how frustrating it has been - this waiting game. If I were done with the interviews it would be great. I wish I had more time to think through them thoughtfully, and to carefully analyze the data - but the time is up, and I will get no time to do that - or at least very little time for that.

Next semester is going to be a bear - teaching three classes is so demanding! And it's a bit like being away from kids, when you get back they need extra TLC. I can only imagine that my advisees will need extra support. And speaking of my kids, I'm worried that they (and P and mainly P, will be upset with me when I go back to work and am less available).

I also think that finishing up this performance piece to perform in May will be difficult.

And lastly, I am really struck with the dilemma I feel around my ability/willingness to suck it up and get over the angst I feel about living in a suburban wasteland! I am never around people of color, and never around people who struggle to make ends meet. All the people I am around are people of privilege. I struggle to find myself in the midst of that milieu, and even more I struggle to feel that I haven't just "sold out" but that I can be part of making the world better. Can I be me? Can I be a me that is powerful, beautiful, useful, smart, capable, able to make a difference?

I'm scared - afraid of the toll that living in this constant conflict takes, afraid of the lack of connection I feel for those less fortunate after I've immersed myself in comfort, afraid of the gap it creates between me and those I love most.

I have to trust that I can find my voice, that these projects can bring out my contribution, can lead me to my community!

Marianne Williamson wrote in Return to Love :
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

replacing guilt with joy

Well, it's official!!!

My proposal is now officially approved, and I anticipate a tuition reduction any day! After paying tuition for 10 years, I can honestly say that this is one of the most important things about finishing this degree. I feel so badly about how long this has taken, and how many "resources" I used by taking so long. I don't know - it's about "first-world" guilt - about privilege and how terrible it is to have so much of it. It's about wanting to become part of the solution!

Meanwhile, can I replace guilt with joy? What is served by my guilt? nothing good Isuspect.

How about gratitude? I keep trying to replace guilt with humble gratitude, with fire for social justice, with joy in the presence of love in my life.

A friend sent me this poem recently... I need to be reminded that for now "only once" is what we have - this moment, this day, this opportunity for joy.

Once Only

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted to us
joy, we thought we’d do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don’t
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

- Denise Lervertov

Monday, December 4, 2006

things are moving

OK.... so the last member of my committee finally got back to me (at 3:46 am on Saturday), and she too had very positive things to say and no changes to recommend, so I AM FREE to now call myself a "Doctoral Candidate," to collect data, to get a 30% reduction in tuition and most importantly to take a leave of absence which will allow me to stop paying tuition for a few months!

Honestly, it's not official yet (all the oficianados at the school need to sign their John Hancock's on the dotted lines...) but I feel an enormous relief! And if I can stop paying tuition for a few months, maybe we can actually afford our lifestyle!

My papers from Summer school are done. I turned the last grade in last week. And the newsletter that I edit for the non-profit I volunteer for is now with the layout person!

I, of course, have a lot of other things to rush in and make me stressed, but for now I want to just celebrate the fact that things are moving on... I did an interview yesterday, and have another one scheduled for Thursday! And this is the first time I really believe I am going to finish this thing!!!!