Glenda Burgess's Blog, page 29
September 19, 2012
The Places You'll Go
�You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...�
― Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
There are so many jumping off places in life - that first day of Kindergarten, perhaps a religious commitment or confirmation, maybe just saying "no" when others push "yes"... And there's that BIG one, college. My son has been through the grist mill when it comes to higher education. His first commitment was to a military service academy. He and his plebe buds survived summer military training and advanced through the ranks to become upperclassmen, training hard in military skills, and core science and math academics. He rode for the cycling team, became a respected leader within his company, and majored in Computer and Electrical Engineering. In my son's case, fate intervened shortly after making his junior year formal service commitment: he was released on an honorable, medical discharge. It took awhile for him to sort through the whys and hows, and the sucking vertigo of dislocation he felt personally as well as in his education. Yet he handled it all with dignity and personal quietude, centered in adaptation and faith in life. I was privileged to experience the kind of man my son actually had grown to become: the kind that doesn't quit, even when there is no Plan B.
The following year was one of regathering a sense of purpose, redefining new education and career goals, and finding a way to stay productive and positive while living and working on his own, and waiting, once again, through the agonizing and uncertain process of college applications. This time as a transfer student - with fewer slots and greater odds against him wherever he might apply.
Tuesday, September 18th: Move-in day, Convocation, and the new class of 2016 is officially admitted to Stanford University. As parents and students sat in the golden sun on the old Mission-style quadrangle of Stanford's central campus, President Hennessey spoke about the beauty of beginnings, and the uncertainty that can accompany that first step. He reminded the new freshmen that they should believe in themselves, because the school certainly did. The President, and the Dean of Admissions, also specifically referenced the handful of transfer students scattered throughout the audience. How impressed they were by unique backgrounds of achievement and challenge, and their importance, as members of the Class of 2014 and 2015, to the development of ideas and community throughout the university. The faculty acknowledged the same strength and focus in the new class of admitted transfer students I witnessed take hold in my son: The ability to take that first step into the unknown, and if life or expectations change, retake it yet again.
As often as life requires.
I sat beside my son listening to the closing benediction, more proud of him than I had ever been, and for vastly different reasons than most of those parents beside me. There is pride in watching your children accomplish their dreams the first time, but there is a deeper faith seeing them doing so, because they have to, again. Creating Plan B, dusting yourself off and starting over, is character - built from the guts and muscle of life.
�You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!�
― Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
― Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
There are so many jumping off places in life - that first day of Kindergarten, perhaps a religious commitment or confirmation, maybe just saying "no" when others push "yes"... And there's that BIG one, college. My son has been through the grist mill when it comes to higher education. His first commitment was to a military service academy. He and his plebe buds survived summer military training and advanced through the ranks to become upperclassmen, training hard in military skills, and core science and math academics. He rode for the cycling team, became a respected leader within his company, and majored in Computer and Electrical Engineering. In my son's case, fate intervened shortly after making his junior year formal service commitment: he was released on an honorable, medical discharge. It took awhile for him to sort through the whys and hows, and the sucking vertigo of dislocation he felt personally as well as in his education. Yet he handled it all with dignity and personal quietude, centered in adaptation and faith in life. I was privileged to experience the kind of man my son actually had grown to become: the kind that doesn't quit, even when there is no Plan B.
The following year was one of regathering a sense of purpose, redefining new education and career goals, and finding a way to stay productive and positive while living and working on his own, and waiting, once again, through the agonizing and uncertain process of college applications. This time as a transfer student - with fewer slots and greater odds against him wherever he might apply.
Tuesday, September 18th: Move-in day, Convocation, and the new class of 2016 is officially admitted to Stanford University. As parents and students sat in the golden sun on the old Mission-style quadrangle of Stanford's central campus, President Hennessey spoke about the beauty of beginnings, and the uncertainty that can accompany that first step. He reminded the new freshmen that they should believe in themselves, because the school certainly did. The President, and the Dean of Admissions, also specifically referenced the handful of transfer students scattered throughout the audience. How impressed they were by unique backgrounds of achievement and challenge, and their importance, as members of the Class of 2014 and 2015, to the development of ideas and community throughout the university. The faculty acknowledged the same strength and focus in the new class of admitted transfer students I witnessed take hold in my son: The ability to take that first step into the unknown, and if life or expectations change, retake it yet again.
As often as life requires.
I sat beside my son listening to the closing benediction, more proud of him than I had ever been, and for vastly different reasons than most of those parents beside me. There is pride in watching your children accomplish their dreams the first time, but there is a deeper faith seeing them doing so, because they have to, again. Creating Plan B, dusting yourself off and starting over, is character - built from the guts and muscle of life.
�You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!�
― Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
September 13, 2012
A Content Heavy World
Yesterday, in the face of escalating MidEast violence, attacks on American Embassies and continuing regional unrest, I felt an intense contrast between what I do now (creative writing) and what I was committed to 22 years ago when I first joined the US State Department. In 1980, I joined State under President Jimmy Carter as a Presidential Fellow, eager to apply my political science education and Masters in Public Administration from the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs to the American diplomatic effort. I was an idealist in fervent support of the goal of international peace and understanding. A decision made in full light of the events of November 4, 1979, when armed rebels in the country of Iran attacked the US Embassy and 52 American Embassy personnel became prisoners of the rebellion for 444 days. That moment to now brackets two points of international unrest that have resulted in the deaths of American Embassy personnel overseas.
Fiction seems so thin a pursuit in the face of real world struggles, and I must ask if the work I do as a writer leverages or wastes my given personal abilities to make a difference in the world. The potential to offer meaningful service to others. I look at the blogs, the book reviews, the novel in progress and think: Too much "lightness of being" in a content heavy world.
My friend, Barb Camberlain, who works in public service, sent me this comment yesterday - Where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need you will find your calling (Frederich Buechner). You can write/serve! These are meaningful words. But the gap between what is one's "greatest joy" and "the world's greatest need" is measured how? Ambassador Chris Stevens worked in the arena of peace and stability for Libyans as well as American interests in Libya. His sad loss can be measured in personal and world terms, as is true for the other Americans killed at the American Consulate in Benghazi. The arena of the arts presents a challenge: How to discern the public value in any one particular painting, poem, story, or dance? Yes, the arts are the receptacle of global culture, and for that alone, are intrinsically valuable. Human history is recorded in the creative: the expression of what evolves from, and beyond, the commonplace. An ongoing translation of the ordinary into a symbolism of deeper human understanding. Yet it is not among equals that social enterprise matters; that what is made is worthy. We know this. There is substance and there is fluff, contribution and dissolution, meaning and what is vacuous. It is for each of us to push the boundary between our talents and the existential yaw, to address the terrible want of the world.
Today, like many of the days since I left public service and turned to a writing life, I think about the value to me and to humanity of the simple, ordinary things I do, and wonder if I've ever tapped the personal extraordinary we are all sometimes capable of. These are extraordinary times, in a world that demands more of us. More of me.
Fiction seems so thin a pursuit in the face of real world struggles, and I must ask if the work I do as a writer leverages or wastes my given personal abilities to make a difference in the world. The potential to offer meaningful service to others. I look at the blogs, the book reviews, the novel in progress and think: Too much "lightness of being" in a content heavy world.
My friend, Barb Camberlain, who works in public service, sent me this comment yesterday - Where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need you will find your calling (Frederich Buechner). You can write/serve! These are meaningful words. But the gap between what is one's "greatest joy" and "the world's greatest need" is measured how? Ambassador Chris Stevens worked in the arena of peace and stability for Libyans as well as American interests in Libya. His sad loss can be measured in personal and world terms, as is true for the other Americans killed at the American Consulate in Benghazi. The arena of the arts presents a challenge: How to discern the public value in any one particular painting, poem, story, or dance? Yes, the arts are the receptacle of global culture, and for that alone, are intrinsically valuable. Human history is recorded in the creative: the expression of what evolves from, and beyond, the commonplace. An ongoing translation of the ordinary into a symbolism of deeper human understanding. Yet it is not among equals that social enterprise matters; that what is made is worthy. We know this. There is substance and there is fluff, contribution and dissolution, meaning and what is vacuous. It is for each of us to push the boundary between our talents and the existential yaw, to address the terrible want of the world.
Today, like many of the days since I left public service and turned to a writing life, I think about the value to me and to humanity of the simple, ordinary things I do, and wonder if I've ever tapped the personal extraordinary we are all sometimes capable of. These are extraordinary times, in a world that demands more of us. More of me.
September 10, 2012
Hope & Remembrance
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die
- from "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Alfred, Lord Tennyson
September 11, 2001. No one of our generation will forget this day. The massive losses of human life in the synchronized terrorist attacks shook our ideals as an American nation and as peace-seeking individuals. A shaken national confidence. The lingering sense of confusion, of fear and insecurity. Psychic scars and literal changes to the way we live our daily lives that will last indefinitely.
When I talk to those of the Vietnam generation or listen to the stories of those who lived through World War II, I understand how this profound shattering of souls has happened before. War, famine, and disease spike human history: In just the last approximate 100 years we have witnessed the unspeakable suffering and horrors of World War I. The massive loss of life to the flu pandemic of 1918. Before that, the bloody histories of the Civil War. (Not to mention the horrific impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and the recent tsunamis.) For as long as people have struggled for peace and prosperity, there have been pivotal outbreaks of violent cataclysmic conflict or sweeping famine and disease to change the years to follow. But I wonder, could we be building a species immunity to these ever-extremes of violence and pandemic? A better sense of what not to do, or how to proceed, or how to avoid what the generations before have experienced or destroyed? Is there an epidemiology of mass tragedy that carries within it even a kernel of resistance to repetition?
On the subject of war alone it would appear not. Part of the heartbreak and melancholy surrounding our remembrance of 9/11 is more than mourning this loss of innocents; we are haunted by an uneasy, subtle knowledge terrorism can occur at any time. Violence breaks through our most enlightened eras, endemic to human nature it appears. I am more hopeful about the progress of science in eradicating disease and famine than its impact on violence. I am more hopeful about positive outcomes from rebellions for civil independence than in the elimination of terrorist attacks of hatred. Yet. The continuing Syrian civil violence marks the worst shredding of human life and morality in contemporary history; following in the footsteps of the unrelenting genocide in Darfur to combine the worst of human cruelty and abuse of power.
Natural disasters and famine unite humanity in efforts of survival and recovery. Threats from disease bring the world scientific community together to research global solutions. But violence lies in the soul. How we handle conflict is a measure of human restraint. Are we evolving as a human race or not? Every generation fervently hopes so. But it is our children who will be the ones to find out.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die
- from "The Charge of the Light Brigade," Alfred, Lord Tennyson
September 11, 2001. No one of our generation will forget this day. The massive losses of human life in the synchronized terrorist attacks shook our ideals as an American nation and as peace-seeking individuals. A shaken national confidence. The lingering sense of confusion, of fear and insecurity. Psychic scars and literal changes to the way we live our daily lives that will last indefinitely.
When I talk to those of the Vietnam generation or listen to the stories of those who lived through World War II, I understand how this profound shattering of souls has happened before. War, famine, and disease spike human history: In just the last approximate 100 years we have witnessed the unspeakable suffering and horrors of World War I. The massive loss of life to the flu pandemic of 1918. Before that, the bloody histories of the Civil War. (Not to mention the horrific impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and the recent tsunamis.) For as long as people have struggled for peace and prosperity, there have been pivotal outbreaks of violent cataclysmic conflict or sweeping famine and disease to change the years to follow. But I wonder, could we be building a species immunity to these ever-extremes of violence and pandemic? A better sense of what not to do, or how to proceed, or how to avoid what the generations before have experienced or destroyed? Is there an epidemiology of mass tragedy that carries within it even a kernel of resistance to repetition?
On the subject of war alone it would appear not. Part of the heartbreak and melancholy surrounding our remembrance of 9/11 is more than mourning this loss of innocents; we are haunted by an uneasy, subtle knowledge terrorism can occur at any time. Violence breaks through our most enlightened eras, endemic to human nature it appears. I am more hopeful about the progress of science in eradicating disease and famine than its impact on violence. I am more hopeful about positive outcomes from rebellions for civil independence than in the elimination of terrorist attacks of hatred. Yet. The continuing Syrian civil violence marks the worst shredding of human life and morality in contemporary history; following in the footsteps of the unrelenting genocide in Darfur to combine the worst of human cruelty and abuse of power.
Natural disasters and famine unite humanity in efforts of survival and recovery. Threats from disease bring the world scientific community together to research global solutions. But violence lies in the soul. How we handle conflict is a measure of human restraint. Are we evolving as a human race or not? Every generation fervently hopes so. But it is our children who will be the ones to find out.
September 4, 2012
Shine
Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation: but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last night I, like thousands of Americans, tuned in to watch the Democratic National Convention, which followed closely on the heels of its counterpart, the Republican National Convention. As a former high school debater and lifetime lover of speech and rhetoric, political speeches offer an opportunity to witness the art of persuasive speaking, hopefully at its finest: Fresh new thinking, eloquently expressed passion, thoughtful arguments in continuance of our nation's Presidential debates. What startled me in its complete unexpectedness, was to see a woman I know and admire stand on the podium, and in her friendly, humble way, introduce First Lady Michelle Obama for her keynote address.
In a short introduction, this woman I admire so greatly, spoke softly about those who serve our country and their families; and about our national obligation to our wounded warriors. What few know that I and many many military academy parents know, is that Elaine Brye, whose husband was a combat pilot in Vietnam and who calls home a family farm in Ohio, is more than a veteran, mother, and teacher. Four of her five children serve in different branches of military service, and the fifth, graduating high school, hopes to be on his way soon. She is the kind of woman to devote a year to public service, teaching in Kabul. And most important to my personal experience, a volunteer parent liaison who reaches out to other military academy parents, as she herself has been, to offer the comfort and support necessary to bolster our commitment to our sons and daughters on the unique and challenging journey of attending a military academy on their way to military careers and public service.
In 2009, as my son began his military education and service at the United States Naval Academy, Elaine Brye was the new friend on the other end of a phone call, a hug, an encouraging email. She was the voice of reason, the archive of things past and the wisdom of experience. She was a shoulder to many to cry on when things grew dark or discouraging. She was always that one person, parent-to-parent, you could count on to listen and offer support, knowing that honor and youthful commitment aside, these were our kids. And there she was, smiling and full of light on the stage of the DNC, grasping hands in welcome with our First Lady. I caught my breath in awe, watching her stand there, quiet and real, living testimony to what her passion is - America's men and women in military service and the support of their families.
The post-script to this epic moment for me is that nothing in Elaine's life would have struck any of us as a path to here. She has, as Emerson urged, simply expressed her best. Her unique passion and full-throttle energy, her love of others. Even her warmth to send a Christmas card to the White House, thanking the First Lady for her support of our military families. Her years of selfless dedication made her that right choice to introduce to the DNC and those of us watching at home, the First Lady to America's President and Commander in Chief. Emerson is right: None of us yet knows what our best is, nor can we, until we have exhibited it.
Elaine Brye found her moment, and through her, love shines.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last night I, like thousands of Americans, tuned in to watch the Democratic National Convention, which followed closely on the heels of its counterpart, the Republican National Convention. As a former high school debater and lifetime lover of speech and rhetoric, political speeches offer an opportunity to witness the art of persuasive speaking, hopefully at its finest: Fresh new thinking, eloquently expressed passion, thoughtful arguments in continuance of our nation's Presidential debates. What startled me in its complete unexpectedness, was to see a woman I know and admire stand on the podium, and in her friendly, humble way, introduce First Lady Michelle Obama for her keynote address.
In a short introduction, this woman I admire so greatly, spoke softly about those who serve our country and their families; and about our national obligation to our wounded warriors. What few know that I and many many military academy parents know, is that Elaine Brye, whose husband was a combat pilot in Vietnam and who calls home a family farm in Ohio, is more than a veteran, mother, and teacher. Four of her five children serve in different branches of military service, and the fifth, graduating high school, hopes to be on his way soon. She is the kind of woman to devote a year to public service, teaching in Kabul. And most important to my personal experience, a volunteer parent liaison who reaches out to other military academy parents, as she herself has been, to offer the comfort and support necessary to bolster our commitment to our sons and daughters on the unique and challenging journey of attending a military academy on their way to military careers and public service.
In 2009, as my son began his military education and service at the United States Naval Academy, Elaine Brye was the new friend on the other end of a phone call, a hug, an encouraging email. She was the voice of reason, the archive of things past and the wisdom of experience. She was a shoulder to many to cry on when things grew dark or discouraging. She was always that one person, parent-to-parent, you could count on to listen and offer support, knowing that honor and youthful commitment aside, these were our kids. And there she was, smiling and full of light on the stage of the DNC, grasping hands in welcome with our First Lady. I caught my breath in awe, watching her stand there, quiet and real, living testimony to what her passion is - America's men and women in military service and the support of their families.
The post-script to this epic moment for me is that nothing in Elaine's life would have struck any of us as a path to here. She has, as Emerson urged, simply expressed her best. Her unique passion and full-throttle energy, her love of others. Even her warmth to send a Christmas card to the White House, thanking the First Lady for her support of our military families. Her years of selfless dedication made her that right choice to introduce to the DNC and those of us watching at home, the First Lady to America's President and Commander in Chief. Emerson is right: None of us yet knows what our best is, nor can we, until we have exhibited it.
Elaine Brye found her moment, and through her, love shines.
September 2, 2012
Savor the World
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.
- E. B. White
It seems as though the world is tilting again, making that great moon phase change in the rotation of generations. In the face of time, we lose the great icons of contemporary history. Yes, life and death are an endless repeating pattern of loss and replacement, but it seems to me loss is the more poignant. Names and faces, heros and legends... the bookmarks of our lives on earth suddenly depart. Am I the only one who feels the world has lost something significant, saying goodbye this year to Neil Armstrong, Lucille Ball, Hal David, Takane Wantanabe, Hans Einstein, Emmanuel Nues, and so many others who define our history, as well as the familiar? Not all are the brilliant and famous, some are simply those we dearly love. But their loss empties us.
I am reminded by this E.B. White quote that we are often so busy in the world, saving and fixing and doing and making and building and finding, that we forget to enjoy our lives. And enjoy those with us on the journey. To savor the experience of living, to savor the world around us, and to appreciate and fully immerse ourselves in our families and friendships and the beauty of nature. Poet Mary Oliver often writes of the fleeting nature of life itself, calling us to heed the imperative to pay attention and appreciate. I'll close today's note with the final stanza of her poem, "The Summer Day" -
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- E. B. White
It seems as though the world is tilting again, making that great moon phase change in the rotation of generations. In the face of time, we lose the great icons of contemporary history. Yes, life and death are an endless repeating pattern of loss and replacement, but it seems to me loss is the more poignant. Names and faces, heros and legends... the bookmarks of our lives on earth suddenly depart. Am I the only one who feels the world has lost something significant, saying goodbye this year to Neil Armstrong, Lucille Ball, Hal David, Takane Wantanabe, Hans Einstein, Emmanuel Nues, and so many others who define our history, as well as the familiar? Not all are the brilliant and famous, some are simply those we dearly love. But their loss empties us.
I am reminded by this E.B. White quote that we are often so busy in the world, saving and fixing and doing and making and building and finding, that we forget to enjoy our lives. And enjoy those with us on the journey. To savor the experience of living, to savor the world around us, and to appreciate and fully immerse ourselves in our families and friendships and the beauty of nature. Poet Mary Oliver often writes of the fleeting nature of life itself, calling us to heed the imperative to pay attention and appreciate. I'll close today's note with the final stanza of her poem, "The Summer Day" -
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
August 29, 2012
Freedom to Be
The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
- Bernard Malamud
The news media has been bursting at the seams lately with ambitious, sometimes disturbing stories that feature those nicknamed "helicopter parents," i.e. the hovering parent that supervises, directs, plans and all but executes every living, waking moment of their child's life. Talk about your "Tiger Mom" (I know what's best for this kid's success) to the "Sports Dad" (No way anyone will cut my kid!). Some of this is natural protective instinct taken to an extreme (after all it is a BIG, and indifferent world out there). But a great deal of it is ego extension, or child-as-me. The kid cut from the soccer team is not so much the kid, as the parent. The child that applies to elite colleges and is not admitted to any is not just a statistic of limited openings and intense competition, but perceived as a failure by the parent to produce a smart enough child. Worse yet, helicopter parents are writing top-selling books about their programs for success, outlining the keys to "making it in."
When did we become this nation of ambitious parents driven not by the dream to have our kids lead better lives with more opportunities than those afforded to us, but this club of prideful adults demanding our kids reflect well on us? We want our bragging rights fully fueled: ready to head-line our kids' accomplishments at the grocery check-out line, in the annual holiday card update, the after school science fair, the April college acceptance swell. Not that we aren't thrilled for our kids, who are often just relieved that they got in or made the grade so that we're happy, but deep inside, their success makes us feel better about ourselves. Living vicariously through the lives of our children is the new American past-time. It is a do-over for adults less than wowed by their own accomplishments, or who feel their luck or hard work is at last cemented into a genuine legacy through the clear superiority of their children.
Let's stop the insanity. We can end the hovering, the suffocating direction, the "hurried child" syndrome, by paying better attention to the needs of our children to choose their own path. I do feel we are doing our level best as parents when we help our children along, provide information to guide their choices, point them toward opportunity... but the freedom for our kids to quit soccer, choose a professional skill and not a college degree, wander for awhile to "find themselves" - this is nurturing, the antithesis to hovering. It is not the child-as-me, but embracing the unique independent spirit of each child to become a self-defined adult.
We could begin by ending the toddlers and beauty pageants nonsense. Open the dress-up trunk and let their imaginations play.
- Bernard Malamud
The news media has been bursting at the seams lately with ambitious, sometimes disturbing stories that feature those nicknamed "helicopter parents," i.e. the hovering parent that supervises, directs, plans and all but executes every living, waking moment of their child's life. Talk about your "Tiger Mom" (I know what's best for this kid's success) to the "Sports Dad" (No way anyone will cut my kid!). Some of this is natural protective instinct taken to an extreme (after all it is a BIG, and indifferent world out there). But a great deal of it is ego extension, or child-as-me. The kid cut from the soccer team is not so much the kid, as the parent. The child that applies to elite colleges and is not admitted to any is not just a statistic of limited openings and intense competition, but perceived as a failure by the parent to produce a smart enough child. Worse yet, helicopter parents are writing top-selling books about their programs for success, outlining the keys to "making it in."
When did we become this nation of ambitious parents driven not by the dream to have our kids lead better lives with more opportunities than those afforded to us, but this club of prideful adults demanding our kids reflect well on us? We want our bragging rights fully fueled: ready to head-line our kids' accomplishments at the grocery check-out line, in the annual holiday card update, the after school science fair, the April college acceptance swell. Not that we aren't thrilled for our kids, who are often just relieved that they got in or made the grade so that we're happy, but deep inside, their success makes us feel better about ourselves. Living vicariously through the lives of our children is the new American past-time. It is a do-over for adults less than wowed by their own accomplishments, or who feel their luck or hard work is at last cemented into a genuine legacy through the clear superiority of their children.
Let's stop the insanity. We can end the hovering, the suffocating direction, the "hurried child" syndrome, by paying better attention to the needs of our children to choose their own path. I do feel we are doing our level best as parents when we help our children along, provide information to guide their choices, point them toward opportunity... but the freedom for our kids to quit soccer, choose a professional skill and not a college degree, wander for awhile to "find themselves" - this is nurturing, the antithesis to hovering. It is not the child-as-me, but embracing the unique independent spirit of each child to become a self-defined adult.
We could begin by ending the toddlers and beauty pageants nonsense. Open the dress-up trunk and let their imaginations play.
August 27, 2012
Unexpected Gifts
One line came like a gift. It flowed out. I drew back and said "thank you" to the room.
- Joni Mitchell
More than once a perfect sentence or scene concept has come to me, ready made as it were, while I was in the midst of other work. I used to believe that it wasn't possible to effectively multitask large creative projects, to dip from a novel to a short story, back into another novel. To spend time, as needed, on concurrent works of art. I believed one needed commitment, immersion, deep focus, in order to work solidly and productively on a creative idea. Too many irons in the fire and nothing gets hot, as the saying goes. But a few years ago, in the plodding midst of a novel in final pre-galley revision, the unexpected ignition of another project occurred. As Joni Mitchell has acknowledged of singular moments in her songwriting career, the line came as a gift. I suddenly possessed a complete and spectacular opening sentence; knew intimately the character whose story I would tell. I stopped that afternoon, wrote down all that was flooding my mind about this new project and then returned the next day to the novel revisions.
Albert Camus once said, "Every authentic work of art is a gift offered to the future." The faith expressed in ourselves and in the creative process when we act on moments of inspiration pushes open that door. Takes us from here, to there. Creative gifts come wrapped in intuitive recognition of spark: and from inviting in what beckons, allowing an idea to grow into form and being. Pay attention to the strange and unfamiliar. Invention flowers when we dig our hands into the earth of creativity.
Eric Maisel, in his little chapbook, Affirmations for Artists, writes that "Creativity is the gift that keeps on giving. As an artist nurtures her creativity, supporting it and fearlessly producing, she receives from herself ideas, images, guidance, and inspirations... pay attention to the knocking when gifts come calling." Powerful verbs: nurture, support, produce. A diversity of sources flow in and through. It makes sense why I am drawn to sketch in my notebooks when I travel. I am in some way teaching myself to reflect, to reproduce in my hand and mind bits of framed imagery. The habit of close-looking will make it easier to write detailed scene. This cross-pollination between all our senses and creative expression might be the unexpected grace note. A gift only a deeply nourished imagination could yield.
I invite you to go outside and play. Listen to new music at your desk. Walk out the solution. Paint a theme and tap out melody. Speak out loud the undefined thing that keeps you procrastinating. And when you have your answer, say "thank you" to the room.
- Joni Mitchell
More than once a perfect sentence or scene concept has come to me, ready made as it were, while I was in the midst of other work. I used to believe that it wasn't possible to effectively multitask large creative projects, to dip from a novel to a short story, back into another novel. To spend time, as needed, on concurrent works of art. I believed one needed commitment, immersion, deep focus, in order to work solidly and productively on a creative idea. Too many irons in the fire and nothing gets hot, as the saying goes. But a few years ago, in the plodding midst of a novel in final pre-galley revision, the unexpected ignition of another project occurred. As Joni Mitchell has acknowledged of singular moments in her songwriting career, the line came as a gift. I suddenly possessed a complete and spectacular opening sentence; knew intimately the character whose story I would tell. I stopped that afternoon, wrote down all that was flooding my mind about this new project and then returned the next day to the novel revisions.
Albert Camus once said, "Every authentic work of art is a gift offered to the future." The faith expressed in ourselves and in the creative process when we act on moments of inspiration pushes open that door. Takes us from here, to there. Creative gifts come wrapped in intuitive recognition of spark: and from inviting in what beckons, allowing an idea to grow into form and being. Pay attention to the strange and unfamiliar. Invention flowers when we dig our hands into the earth of creativity.
Eric Maisel, in his little chapbook, Affirmations for Artists, writes that "Creativity is the gift that keeps on giving. As an artist nurtures her creativity, supporting it and fearlessly producing, she receives from herself ideas, images, guidance, and inspirations... pay attention to the knocking when gifts come calling." Powerful verbs: nurture, support, produce. A diversity of sources flow in and through. It makes sense why I am drawn to sketch in my notebooks when I travel. I am in some way teaching myself to reflect, to reproduce in my hand and mind bits of framed imagery. The habit of close-looking will make it easier to write detailed scene. This cross-pollination between all our senses and creative expression might be the unexpected grace note. A gift only a deeply nourished imagination could yield.
I invite you to go outside and play. Listen to new music at your desk. Walk out the solution. Paint a theme and tap out melody. Speak out loud the undefined thing that keeps you procrastinating. And when you have your answer, say "thank you" to the room.
August 22, 2012
Almost Perfect
Getting 85% of what you want out of work, real estate, or love is about right. Aim higher and you're likely to find yourself self-employed, living at home, or single.
- Glenn Byron Waugh, my grandfather
It's strange how as I grow older, the words of advice imparted to me along the way have come to mean more. My gandfather, a cheerful self-made man who left school in the 8th grade and rose to become the successful advertising director for a national retail store, was full of good Scotch advice; pithy, unsentimental truisms that he imparted to me along the way. Particularly after I left college and began my career at the State Department in Washington DC: Real Life 101. One of his favorite bits of advice was the saying I included in my memoir, THE GEOGRAPHY OF LOVE, "If you don't like it, get out of it. If you can't get out of it, get into it." A fabulous way of pointing out that we first have choice, and then we have perspective. Use them both, and make any less than ideal situation work as best you can. I have imparted this particular saying to my adult children several times in the last year as they have navigated college, work, graduate school. Life is all about both goals and compromise, dreams come true and imperfect outcomes.
Married to a sweet and artistic German girl, the only girl and youngest of three, my grandfather was fond of quoting one particular phrase from her father, Willhelm Gerhauser. Great-grandfather Gerhauser was immigrated to America: a resourceful and hardworking man, he established a homestead farm in the West. Roughly translated, the folkism my grandfather imparted to me means, "All is good, nothing is not good." A perhaps slightly fatalistic, but optimistic belief that everything is meant to be, even if it takes awhile to understand (or accept) exactly how or why. Very helpful in the uncertainty of drought, war, an unfamiliar culture. Being twenty-something in a fast-paced, changing world.
The "85%" quote of my grandfather's most recently came up at a wedding. The sage, often expressed sentiment that unique differences are both the spice of interest and the frustration of compromise. We are not clones of one another, and that individualistic element is the final 15% in someone we may never quite get, accept, or particularly like. But life is about awesome "mostly," not totally. We are mostly successful, mostly happy, mostly on track, mostly healthy, mostly satisfied in our careers, mostly content with our kitchens, mostly a good fit with our spouses.
That is, if we're lucky. Mostly is pretty damn fine.
- Glenn Byron Waugh, my grandfather
It's strange how as I grow older, the words of advice imparted to me along the way have come to mean more. My gandfather, a cheerful self-made man who left school in the 8th grade and rose to become the successful advertising director for a national retail store, was full of good Scotch advice; pithy, unsentimental truisms that he imparted to me along the way. Particularly after I left college and began my career at the State Department in Washington DC: Real Life 101. One of his favorite bits of advice was the saying I included in my memoir, THE GEOGRAPHY OF LOVE, "If you don't like it, get out of it. If you can't get out of it, get into it." A fabulous way of pointing out that we first have choice, and then we have perspective. Use them both, and make any less than ideal situation work as best you can. I have imparted this particular saying to my adult children several times in the last year as they have navigated college, work, graduate school. Life is all about both goals and compromise, dreams come true and imperfect outcomes.
Married to a sweet and artistic German girl, the only girl and youngest of three, my grandfather was fond of quoting one particular phrase from her father, Willhelm Gerhauser. Great-grandfather Gerhauser was immigrated to America: a resourceful and hardworking man, he established a homestead farm in the West. Roughly translated, the folkism my grandfather imparted to me means, "All is good, nothing is not good." A perhaps slightly fatalistic, but optimistic belief that everything is meant to be, even if it takes awhile to understand (or accept) exactly how or why. Very helpful in the uncertainty of drought, war, an unfamiliar culture. Being twenty-something in a fast-paced, changing world.
The "85%" quote of my grandfather's most recently came up at a wedding. The sage, often expressed sentiment that unique differences are both the spice of interest and the frustration of compromise. We are not clones of one another, and that individualistic element is the final 15% in someone we may never quite get, accept, or particularly like. But life is about awesome "mostly," not totally. We are mostly successful, mostly happy, mostly on track, mostly healthy, mostly satisfied in our careers, mostly content with our kitchens, mostly a good fit with our spouses.
That is, if we're lucky. Mostly is pretty damn fine.
August 19, 2012
Variations on a Theme
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me - a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic - or was it I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
-Variation on a Theme by Rilke, Denise Levertov
I think we sometimes forget we are organic beings. Part of the earth, the sky, and all that lies between. My husband, a physician, is used to the bare bones truth of the organic human; part of an every hour, day after day, invisible medical team that carefully and conscientiously strives to put back together what folly, violence, accident, or disease has broken. We are easily fractured. Events toss us. A vortex with an aftermath that will bear scars, abide sorrow forever. The miracles of skill and mystery.
On call on a recent crazy hot summer August night at the hospital, he worked a nearly 18 hour shift of relentless traumas. There are always the knuckle-heads, the drunks and knife fights, the drug deals gone wrong, all we might cynically and collectively disparage as a parade of idiocy. But what causes any good doctor to pause and spend an extra moment or two with someone on a night like this are those caught up in the collateral damage. The innocent bystander, the "other driver" on the way home from a late work shift the drunk hits head on, the old and sick late at night and alone. Victims, families.
Denise Levertov's poem speaks to the living breath of a given day. Life itself is a pulsing entity, both directive and utter chaos. The fate of who we are, where we are, and what we do depends not so much on chance as choice. The capability within all of us to answer the challenge. To make a difference. To bring all that we can to a problem and endeavor to be part of the solution. Right or wrong, folly or misfortune - judgment is suspended. And in its place we allow ourselves to be "a bell awakened." To command the sheer power of being and step up. I can.
What is your "I can"? To make partner? Forgive? Win Olympic Gold, eradicate ignorance, fly higher, ease poverty, photograph the meaningful, paint fury, end a war? We are as great as we need to be. As we choose to be. Say and sing who you are.
there it was, confronting me - a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic - or was it I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
-Variation on a Theme by Rilke, Denise Levertov
I think we sometimes forget we are organic beings. Part of the earth, the sky, and all that lies between. My husband, a physician, is used to the bare bones truth of the organic human; part of an every hour, day after day, invisible medical team that carefully and conscientiously strives to put back together what folly, violence, accident, or disease has broken. We are easily fractured. Events toss us. A vortex with an aftermath that will bear scars, abide sorrow forever. The miracles of skill and mystery.
On call on a recent crazy hot summer August night at the hospital, he worked a nearly 18 hour shift of relentless traumas. There are always the knuckle-heads, the drunks and knife fights, the drug deals gone wrong, all we might cynically and collectively disparage as a parade of idiocy. But what causes any good doctor to pause and spend an extra moment or two with someone on a night like this are those caught up in the collateral damage. The innocent bystander, the "other driver" on the way home from a late work shift the drunk hits head on, the old and sick late at night and alone. Victims, families.
Denise Levertov's poem speaks to the living breath of a given day. Life itself is a pulsing entity, both directive and utter chaos. The fate of who we are, where we are, and what we do depends not so much on chance as choice. The capability within all of us to answer the challenge. To make a difference. To bring all that we can to a problem and endeavor to be part of the solution. Right or wrong, folly or misfortune - judgment is suspended. And in its place we allow ourselves to be "a bell awakened." To command the sheer power of being and step up. I can.
What is your "I can"? To make partner? Forgive? Win Olympic Gold, eradicate ignorance, fly higher, ease poverty, photograph the meaningful, paint fury, end a war? We are as great as we need to be. As we choose to be. Say and sing who you are.
August 15, 2012
Vision
With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertook to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the 18th of June, in the year of Our Lord, 1799.
- Opening paragraph of Adam Bede by George Eliot
George Eliot speaks through her writing in Adam Bede directly to the reader in the same way I am reminded, following recent and vivid dreams, that our subconscious selves are continuously speaking as well. Nightly, the mysterious ink blot takes shape behind our sleeping eyelids, and story and narration unfold. We may awake confused, but there are times we lie still as the dream settles, a vivid and particular message imparted from an unexpected symbol or word.
Meanings of dreams range in the research on a scale from the merely chaotic and random to the apparently psychic. Dream symbols, dream visitations, dreams in detail that predict future events, even dreams in the guise of one event that clearly tell the intimate tale of another. I myself have dreamt in deja vue: dreaming the receipt of a surprise letter from an old friend, noting postage and handwriting and reading the contents aloud, and the next day, receiving that exact letter by post. It's not mine to explain, but when this kind of experiential slip of time and dimension jars our accepted measure of what is real and what is not, the aftermath is often a more fluid personal definition of fate. History begins to seem less of a chronological march and more dimensional; interlocking rings in which personal and global events tangentially spin through many planes of meaning.
In talking with a friend today about work, specifically about inviting in a major change in career and residence sometime in the near future, I used the phrase, "Open to what the universe brings." Not because I believe in random or directionless fate, but because I sense that there is in life the path we choose, the path we encounter, and all the nuances and variables in between. Sometimes we try so hard to direct the future, we fail to see what comes up naturally around the bend. In my life it has always seemed to work out best when I simply commit to a desired direction and let my inner spiritual GPS "recalculate" as I go.
Lately, my own dreams have involved change as well: a temporary house, painted a remarkable yellow; adventuring on an Odysseyian quest with the voices of those gone speaking as trusted muses; the physical body rhythms of packing and unpacking; an adventure with my adult children moving in and out of the action as members of the supporting cast and no longer my prime directive. All signs of inner shift. My friend? The one contemplating the big change? She gently scooped up the phrase "Open to the universe." Willing to let her next step float for now in her readiness; waiting to embrace what comes of "wait and see."
By the way, I miss novels that open big like Adam Bede by George Eliot. The writing today often too confessional, or its obverse, the chic brittle fancy. Art-less. Dialog-heavy helpings of "distraction action," missing translation. I love those narratives that sweep us up and in, that omniscient stroke of the pen, the sorcerer's dark conjuring... The inky trace of change.
- Opening paragraph of Adam Bede by George Eliot
George Eliot speaks through her writing in Adam Bede directly to the reader in the same way I am reminded, following recent and vivid dreams, that our subconscious selves are continuously speaking as well. Nightly, the mysterious ink blot takes shape behind our sleeping eyelids, and story and narration unfold. We may awake confused, but there are times we lie still as the dream settles, a vivid and particular message imparted from an unexpected symbol or word.
Meanings of dreams range in the research on a scale from the merely chaotic and random to the apparently psychic. Dream symbols, dream visitations, dreams in detail that predict future events, even dreams in the guise of one event that clearly tell the intimate tale of another. I myself have dreamt in deja vue: dreaming the receipt of a surprise letter from an old friend, noting postage and handwriting and reading the contents aloud, and the next day, receiving that exact letter by post. It's not mine to explain, but when this kind of experiential slip of time and dimension jars our accepted measure of what is real and what is not, the aftermath is often a more fluid personal definition of fate. History begins to seem less of a chronological march and more dimensional; interlocking rings in which personal and global events tangentially spin through many planes of meaning.
In talking with a friend today about work, specifically about inviting in a major change in career and residence sometime in the near future, I used the phrase, "Open to what the universe brings." Not because I believe in random or directionless fate, but because I sense that there is in life the path we choose, the path we encounter, and all the nuances and variables in between. Sometimes we try so hard to direct the future, we fail to see what comes up naturally around the bend. In my life it has always seemed to work out best when I simply commit to a desired direction and let my inner spiritual GPS "recalculate" as I go.
Lately, my own dreams have involved change as well: a temporary house, painted a remarkable yellow; adventuring on an Odysseyian quest with the voices of those gone speaking as trusted muses; the physical body rhythms of packing and unpacking; an adventure with my adult children moving in and out of the action as members of the supporting cast and no longer my prime directive. All signs of inner shift. My friend? The one contemplating the big change? She gently scooped up the phrase "Open to the universe." Willing to let her next step float for now in her readiness; waiting to embrace what comes of "wait and see."
By the way, I miss novels that open big like Adam Bede by George Eliot. The writing today often too confessional, or its obverse, the chic brittle fancy. Art-less. Dialog-heavy helpings of "distraction action," missing translation. I love those narratives that sweep us up and in, that omniscient stroke of the pen, the sorcerer's dark conjuring... The inky trace of change.
