Groovin’ on a Sunday Afternoon

February 19, 2012 by scillagrace

*update from yesterday’s post* She Speaks commented:

“I found an online petition from the site “Democrats 2012″ titled “Where are the women?” This petition reads:

‘At a House Oversight Committee hearing, House Republicans convened a panel on denying access to birth control coverage with five men and no women. As Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney asked, “Where are the women?” Join Leader Pelosi in our call to Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, Chairman Issa and all House Republicans to demand that women be allowed at the table when discussing women’s health issues. Help us gather 250,000 signatures.’

Here is the link to sign the petition: http://dccc.org/pages/wherearethewomen

I’ve signed. Please help share this information and encourage everyone you know to sign.”

I’ve signed as well. Please forward to any US citizens you think would like to add their names. *thank you*

Okay, on to All About Me.

So, Steve wakes up this morning singing “Tiny Bubbles” (yes, we do this to each other, sharing whatever our brains mumble out first thing upon waking) …Don Ho…Hawaii…and I go back to being 10 years old, which was my age when I actually traveled to Hawaii. My 10-year old self got excited about many things in Hawaii. I thrilled at the choice of coconut or pineapple syrup on my pancakes because I hate maple syrup. I spent a good 30 minutes at a picnic stop trying to open a coconut by stomping on it with my sneakers. I had a camera of my own and could take my own pictures, a Brownie Starmite which yielded snapshots that the drugstore processed with a “bonus snap” of about half the size of the original included on the print and separated by a perforated line. I eagerly tried to pronounce any Hawaiian word just for the fun of letting the syllables bubble out one after another like waves on the beach. “King Kamehameha” “Queen Liliuokalani” “Mele Kalikimaka” “hukilau” “elepani”. I felt daring and adventurous sliding down a lava tube into a lagoon while my mother hyperventilated on the banks. And I got to go swimming every day! One other memory that will always stand out about my trip to Hawaii: I was often mistaken for a boy.

I had a growing out shag haircut in the spring of 1973. My mother had made me get my shoulder-length blonde hair cut VERY short for our trip “Out West” the summer before. She was probably thinking of the convenience and the hot weather. She also insisted that we wear bathing caps whenever we went swimming. I got the idea that the prime consideration in hairstyles was not attractiveness, and at the time, I didn’t care. Much. I do remember the excruciating moment when I debuted the pixie cut at school for the first time. I was at before-school choir practice on the verge of tears because I felt so self-conscious. I was wearing a dress with a Peter Pan collar, my vulnerable neck exposed. I felt whispers behind me. Then the girl behind me leaned forward to say something, and I imagined she was about to make a comment on my haircut. I froze, trembling, with blurry eyes. Turns out she just wanted to ask what page we were on, but the contact ripped me wide open, and I began to cry. After that, I got used to it and so did others. Folks in Colorado couldn’t tell if I were a boy or a girl as I scrambled up rocky mountains with my cousin, Christopher, and it didn’t matter to me. In Hawaii, my hair was a bit longer, but since it was the 70s, boys were also wearing their hair longer. My family went to a luau one night. Each of us was greeted by a hostess with an armful of flowers. My father got a coconut palm hat placed on his head. My mother and my three older sisters received a beautiful lei of fragrant orchids. I couldn’t wait to receive my own exquisite necklace. But what’s this? Hey! Why did you give me just a stupid, green headband! I’m a GIRL, dammit! Same thing happened on a boat trip a few days later. The guide/entertainer picked me out as a model to receive something he was fashioning behind me out of palm leaves. He probably picked me to keep me from getting bored, to amuse my sisters, or just because I was cute and charismatic…in a unisex kind of way. He placed a headband with a palm “feather” sticking up in the back on my head. My sisters howled.

So, before puberty, I didn’t care about being a girl very much. I played with the boy two doors down every day. When I was alone, I crossed the street into the forest preserve and played in the bushes. I enjoyed being physical, roller-skating and jump-roping especially, and I enjoyed “helping” my father at the workbench in the basement. I was not a complete tom-boy, nor was I a girlie-girl. I was just me, and I was fine. Then I hit high school at 14 in a brand new state, California. My mother decided we all should have a lesson on wearing make-up, so we had a Mary Kay consultant visit the house. I began putting on make-up and styling my hair every day before school. I also began flirting and listening to “funky” music. I began to find my groove.

Jim & Me gettin' our groove on for a 60s themed birthday party

As an adult, I think it would be a revelation to have a conversation with two people from my past especially. One would be the boy I played with every day in grade school, the other would be my first high school boyfriend of more than 2 months. Both of these boys are now homosexual adults, I’ve since learned. I would love to ask them what growing up felt like for them, what our relationship taught them about themselves, but sadly, we lost touch long ago.

Finding my groove in high school led me to two of my greatest expressions of freedom and physicality: dance and jazz. I love to dance. I have taken dance lessons, and I find that I am way too much “in my head” when I’m trying to learn steps and choreography. What I really love is just to free-style to anything with a back beat. Blues, tango, rumba, pop school dances, jazz. I auditioned and got into our high school jazz choir and loved the freedom of improvisation and the soulful feel of the slower pieces we did. From high school, I went on to get a degree in Vocal Performance at a women’s college. I didn’t do any jazz or dancing in those years. I was trying to be more *ahem*, serious about music.

Steve has a very serious music collection, but on Friday, he picked up something from Goodwill’s CD collection with me in mind. It’s “The Fabric of Life” by The Nylons. They’re usually about 4-part a capella vocal jazz, but this CD has percussion and instrumentals as well. He put it on at breakfast, and I had to get out of my chair and dance! It felt great!! My heart rate climbing, my hips swiveling, my shoulders shimmying, my waist stretching and slimming and twisting…I felt alive, physical, ME! Maybe I’m getting closer to understanding how to live in my own skin after all.

I think many women have a long journey to being themselves. It’s easier when you’re 10, I think. It gets pretty complicated through puberty and socialization. Maybe now as I get closer to hitting 50, I can grow into my own groove, be funky and fine and all me. I wish I knew more of my gay friends’ journeys as well. I want to be compassionate to every human and their story of growth.

Non-resistance

February 18, 2012 by scillagrace

Yesterday’s post was on Resistance, and the title was inspired by my “I don’t want!” mood. Today, I am seething a bit about some things, and I’m wondering how to employ non-resistance. Actually, it’s more like non-violent resistance. How do I look at something that I feel is unjust and respond in a way that does not blame, shame or reject but does state emphatically my position and reasons and allows me to live out my values?

I don’t know how to re-blog something, so I will give you a link to a post I’ve been following and commenting on that deals with the birth control mandate in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

I’m also going to include today’s post from my fellow blogger in the UK. She has decided to respond to suffering and injustice by sponsoring a girl in Kenya.

I feel that justice matters, that women’s health matters, that population control matters, that compassion matters, and that the internet should be used as a tool to discuss what matters (and that doesn’t include celebrity hook-ups, IMO!).

Not to imply that I don’t also spend time on things that don’t really matter. Like this afternoon’s Chicago Bulls game. Which is one reason I’m rather late in posting this.

I also feel that loving the universe matters, and I want to live out that value every day.

Resistance

February 17, 2012 by scillagrace

Earlier this week, we sold a book called I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers by Thomas Hine. The blurb about it reads:

“Shopping has a lot in common with sex,” Thomas Hine observes near the beginning of this wide-ranging exploration of the history and psychology of one of the most commonplace and important activities of modern life. “Just about everybody does it. Some people brag about how well they do it. Some keep it a secret. Most people worry, at least a little, about whether they do it right. And both provide ample opportunities to make foolish choices.”

Choosing and using objects is a primal human activity, and I Want That! is nothing less than a portrait of humanity as the species that shops. ”

Me? I hate shopping. My first reaction is always, “I don’t want that.” I have been thinking about getting a place in a more rural area of Wisconsin. Lying in the bathtub this morning, I was struck by a realization. Even if I pay cash for the real estate (from the sale of my former home), I still would have to pay property tax every year. I don’t want that.

I don’t want to be indebted; I don’t want to be obligated. I don’t want to be coerced or pressured into a relationship with any thing. I am beginning to feel a mounting sense of resistance. I’ve resisted getting a full time job for more than a year. I’ve resisted being a consumer, especially of clothing and beauty products. I’ve resisted Facebook. I’ve resisted television and movies. What is that about for me?

I am still struggling to be my own person, I guess. I am struggling to focus on the things that I do want in a manner that I like. I’m not ambitious. I am an observer, an appreciator, but not much of a go-getter. I resist marketing, for sure, but I don’t mind discovery. Maybe part of that is simple laziness. Maybe part of that is wanting the freedom to choose my relationships and responsibilities.

When I first read that comment about shopping having a lot in common with sex, I didn’t get it. I hate shopping. I love sex. I suppose my consistency is in insisting on having the freedom to be very particular about my engagement with both.

And now, for the photo portion of my blog. Choosing images and focusing where I want to, observing and appreciating has led me to these shots. If you discover you like them, great. I will not try to convince you to, though. (Do I sound testy? Okay, so be it.)

A fungus among us

The pod people have hatched

Fascination

February 16, 2012 by scillagrace

I’ve always believed that I have a great capacity for fascination…until a few days ago when I began to read Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood. She has it in spades, and has always had it, in a way that makes me feel distracted and dull by comparison. Here’s an excerpt from that memoir:

“Our parents and grandparents, and all their friends, seemed insensible to their own prominent defect, their limp, coarse skin.

“We children had, for instance, proper hands; our fluid, pliant fingers joined their skin. Adults had misshapen, knuckly hands loose in their skin like bones in bags; it was a wonder they could open jars. There were loose in their skins all over, except at the wrists and ankles, like rabbits.

“We were whole, we were pleasing to ourselves. Our crystalline eyes shone from firm, smooth sockets; we spoke in pure, piping voices through dark, tidy lips. Adults were coming apart, but they neither noticed nor minded. My revulsion was rude, so I hid it. Besides, we could never rise to the absolute figural splendor they alone could on occasion achieve. Our beauty was a mere absence of decrepitude; their beauty, when they had it, was not passive but earned; it was grandeur; it was a party to power, and to artifice, even, and to knowledge. Our beauty was, in the long run, merely elfin. We could not, finally, discount the fact that in some sense they owned us, and they owned the world.

“Mother let me play with one of her hands. She laid it flat on a living-room end table beside her chair. I picked up a transverse pinch of skin over the knuckle of her index finger and let it drop. The pinch didn’t snap back; it lay dead across her knuckle in a yellowish ridge. I poked it; it slid over intact. I left it there as an experiment and shifted to another finger. Mother was reading Time magazine.

“Carefully, lifting it by the tip, I raised her middle finger an inch and released it. It snapped back to the tabletop. Her insides, at least, were alive. I tried all the fingers. They all worked. Some I could lift higher that others.

“That’s getting boring.” “Sorry, Mama.”

“I refashioned the ridge on her index-finger knuckle; I made the ridge as long as I could, using both my hands. Moving quickly, I made parallel ridges on her other fingers — a real mountain chain, the Alleghenies; Indians crept along just below the ridgetops, eyeing the frozen lakes below them through the trees.”

What rare child in this century, surrounded by electronic stimulators of all descriptions, would spend a half an hour fascinated by her mother’s hand, I wonder? I had the chance to meet 56 kindergarteners at the Wehr Nature Center this morning. This is what we brought out to fascinate them:

Boxy

Now that’s an ancient face I could stare at for hours! Meet Boxy, the ornate box turtle. Her species is found primarily in southwestern Wisconsin, where there are sandy prairies and is currently endangered and protected. She came to the nature center about 25 years ago; she may be about 10 years older than that. How do I know to call Boxy ‘she’? Brown eyes. Male box turtles have red eyes. Also, Boxy laid some eggs a few years after she came to the center (not that she had been with a male while she was there). Occasionally, Boxy has her beak trimmed. It can get overgrown because she’s not in the wild digging and wearing it down. I wonder if the vet has ‘styled’ her expression…she looks sad to me. She was quite chipper this morning, though. It’s noticeably warm for this time of year. She and the other reptiles were moving rapidly and eagerly in their cages. We put Boxy down in the middle of the circle of children, and she set out at a brisk pace to examine the perimeter, craning her neck up at the faces around her. She is a bit of a celebrity, as she meets about 10,000 kids every year. She may live to be as many as 70 years old. I wonder if the Nature Center will still be around or if she’ll live out her last days somewhere else.

Boxy has her own beauty, her own fascinating skin. ” The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood….Standing on the bare ground, –my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God…I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

What uncontained and immortal beauty will you discover to love today?

While You Were Sleeping

February 15, 2012 by scillagrace

As usual, he called me at the office that afternoon while he was working from home. “Hi. How are you doing?” I probably mentioned something about my ordinary frustrations on the job or something about our daughters. Then it was down to business. “What are you doing tonight?” It was Friday night. Our youngest had a rehearsal at a church only a few blocks from our house, starting about a half an hour after I got off work. “Do you want to go out to dinner?” “SURE!” It was cold, the roads were icy. We didn’t want to go far, so we dropped her off and went to a bar & grill that had just opened behind the strip mall in our little town. It was full of activity: TVs were on, people bustled about, artwork from the public schools was displayed on the wall. There was lots to look at and hear. The menu was new to us. Teriyaki green beans sounded good. So did fried artichokes. I ordered a beer; I think he did, too. We had sandwiches as well. Then he got a call on his cell phone. Our daughter was not feeling well and was leaving rehearsal early. We said we’d meet her at home. We all talked in the living room for a little while, as he sat on the couch gathering his strength for the climb upstairs. He seemed pretty tired. He’d come home from the hospital just 10 days earlier with 2 cardiac stents implanted. In the bedroom, he turned on the flat screen TV, took his medications (all 23 of them) and hooked up his dialysis machine and his sleep apnea mask. In our big, squishy bed, we watched an episode of “NUMB3RS”, and then the movie “Regarding Henry” came on. I’d seen it before: Harrison Ford and Annette Bening in a good story about marriage, change and intimacy. It complimented the mood perfectly. We were feeling secure, companionable, close. I fell asleep beside him, holding his hand. I awoke at 6:30 AM. His body was still and cold.

That day was exactly four years ago. What did he dream about that night? Did he feel any pain? Did he try to get up? Did he try to call out or wake me? Did he see a brightness as his neurons flashed for the last time? Was it peaceful? I can only imagine.

I can imagine him firing up feelings of love and bathing in them, floating on a surge of endorphins while images of his babies rushed by. I can imagine him strolling an endless golf course of rolling green fairways, tree-lined and bright. I can imagine him soaring with the tenor section in an angel choir, his energy trembling and resonating with clouds and stars. I can imagine him satisfied and proud and smart and good and kind. I can imagine him wrapped in the embrace of the Universe…forever.

I can imagine him, but can I know him any better, any more? I still feel open to him, and as I continue to try to expand my awareness, I wonder about that. I know that I don’t know what I might be able to know. What is memory? What is sleep? What is consciousness? What is death? Are they ‘real’? I don’t know. What is ‘real’? What I know is that I don’t know. What I feel is that he mattered and still matters. I feel that he is.

Sentimental, Sacramental or Cynical

February 14, 2012 by scillagrace

Valentine’s Day. A Hallmark holiday. Is it even connected to anything in history? The Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentines’ Day from its calendar in 1969 because there was nothing known about the 3 St. Valentines that had been venerated except that one of them was martyred on February 14th. Chaucer had started the whole romantic connection by writing this verse in 1382 as part of a poem to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

Okay. So what?

Eventually socialization takes over. We establish a day on the calendar to honor Love and allow traditions to flourish. It’s good for the economy. See also Mother’s Day and Sweetest Day. We grow increasingly attached to our traditions and habits and compartmentalize the celebration of Love to coincide with the day. That’s what I would call sentimental. It’s about the past and nostalgia.

But why not forget February 14, the calendar, and time itself, since they are merely social constructs, and instead try to honor every moment as we live it? The Bell of Mindfulness rings for this moment only. What are you feeling? What is happening around you? Are you fully aware of the miracle of living right now? If in your awareness, you choose to employ an “outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace” of being mindful, then that’s what I would call a sacrament.

And if the whole thing just strikes you as absurd and unrealistic, then you might be what I would call cynical. You might connect the day with massacres and treat your loved ones to:

Texas Chainsaw Cupcakes

Whatever your particular taste tends to on Valentine’s Day, I hope you enjoy the flavor!!

Muck and Muddle

February 13, 2012 by scillagrace

I hate hormones. Why anyone would want to replace estrogen once she’s finally lost it is beyond me. The moods and emotions it produces are so murky.

I feel like I haven’t learned a damn thing about who I am, and I’m almost 50 years old. Aren’t I supposed to get this right, eventually?

Annie Dillard writes about awakening to her consciousness when she was about 10 years old. How do you do that at ten? And remember what it felt like decades later? The woman must have a brain six times the size of mine. Here’s a passage I read this morning, from An American Childhood:

“I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. I woke at intervals until, by that September when Father went down the river, the intervals of waking tipped the scales, and I was more often awake than not. I noticed this process of waking, and predicted with terrifying logic that one of these years not far away I would be awake continuously and never slip back, and never be free of myself again.

“Consciousness converges with the child as a landing tern touches the outspread feet of its shadow on the sand: precisely, toe hits toe. The tern folds its wings to sit; its shadow dips and spreads over the sand to meet and cup its breast.

“Like any child, I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after.”

Why do I feel like I never achieved this perfect fit, this awakened consciousness, not as a child and that I’m struggling to find it still? The idea of ancient grace that began this blog seems as ethereal and unattainable as ever. The clumsy truce I’ve maintained with myself wears thin.

Time to cocoon under the blankets and let the snow fall. Perhaps I’ll emerge as from a chrysalis and feel differently by supper.

The Flow of Emotions

February 12, 2012 by scillagrace

Peace like a river. After the burning of Valhalla, the Rhine surges its banks and brings everything back to a gentle equilibrium. Sometimes I feel like I’ve burned out on the passions of the world and slipped into the calm of old age and wisdom….and then the flames flicker under the surface, and I dive into the drama with an eagerness that mystifies me. Why do I want to go there? Is it my ego grasping for some thrill ride? Beginnings and endings are often infused with heightened emotion, even and maybe especially in the recollection of them. There’s an excitement to those feelings that can be addictive. I wallow in the concept of new love and the tearful goodbyes. And then I get a headache and puffy eyes and wonder why I’m so masochistic. I blame hormones. And social traditions like Valentine’s Day.

I appreciate my partner and the safe but challenging environment he creates. He asks me what I’m feeling and waits patiently while I try to fashion words from the vulnerable soup of my damp thoughts. I am learning to be aware of myself, my cyclical moods and intractable psychological baggage. He senses when I’m “stuck” and when I’m “flowing”. And so, I dedicate this photo to him:

Thanks, Steve, for your compassion.

The Cycle is Complete

February 11, 2012 by scillagrace

I have just returned from spending 6 hours at a modern multiplex movie theater. Hate the glitz, the ads and especially the totally incongruous pre-show music. I was there to see the HD simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Götterdämmerung, the fourth and last installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. If you’ve never learned anything about opera or Wagner before, I must encourage you to at least read up on it. This was my first time getting the whole story and the whole score into my head. I’d heard from my parents about how looooong the operas are. I’d heard snatches of the music, even parodied by Elmer Fudd (“I shot the wabbit…”). I’d heard about Wagnerian sopranos and sniggered at breastplates and horned helmets (hasn’t everyone?). I was not expecting to be emotionally gripped and wrung out on an epic and divine scale, though. The psychology is deeply moving. The music supports it as cinematically and sumptuously as may be humanly possible. The live action, singing and acting, is absolutely intense. Seeing it with close up camera shots accentuates the intimacy, but it may take away from some of the total experience. For this production, the set was designed by Robert Lepage of Cirque du Soliel. It features a monstrous hydrolic machine which often distracts during the quieter instrumental passages as it whirrs and chunks into new positions. Nevertheless, I was spellbound. Particularly, I think, because I found myself identifying with Brünnhilde so painfully, on so many levels. I’ve been left sobbing at the ending of each of the four operas.

Yes, I’m a bit of a drama queen. I was a Voice Performance major in college and spent the last 7 years working for a theater company. I can really get into live performances. I put myself into the skin of the lead soprano every time. But that’s just surface kinship. Like Brünnhilde, my father was a god (in my eyes, at least, for a very long time), and I did everything I could to please him and do the right thing. I ended up disappointed, my sister ended up banished, and the betrayal felt very real. I left my father’s protection and fell in complete and holy love with a hero, a demi-god to many people. He was duped and taken from me by a fatal disease. I felt the anger, the confusion, the crushing grief and vowed to put the pieces together and learn the truth. It took all my strength to face the facts, give up the ring of power, and stand for love. I want to believe that in the end, greed, envy and the renunciation of love will sink down to the bottom of the river and that true friendship and faithful love will rise up. So when our heroine mounts her trusty steed and rides into the funeral pyre with the ring on her finger and all of Valhalla (the gods’ palace) burns up and is engulfed in the flood of the Rhine and the ring finally returns to the river maidens, I experience an emotional catharsis that draws from a deep well of tears.

Brava, Debra Voigt!!!

Drove home in below freezing temperatures, dove under the blankets in my bedroom and looked out the frosty window at this sunset:

It’s like Valhalla is still burning. Will we ever learn? At the end of the world, will love win? The shamans of the Romantic era are telling us it’s possible. Dare I believe?

Looking at Life: The Photography Metaphor

February 10, 2012 by scillagrace

So, my son’s visit has come to an end. It was good to offer him a retreat from his everyday routine, a chance to slow down and reflect, the reassurance of support and the challenge of articulating his thoughts, feelings, and desires. Making your way in the world as a young adult is hard work; there’s so much to process and so many options. As I mess around with photos, sliding tint and color saturation and cropping and brightness tools around, I think of all the different ways there are to look at the world. How do you land on the one you want to “apply”? What is the result you’re looking for? How do you recognize that result or closer approximations of it?

I keep asking myself those questions, and the answers do change.

My son remembered some of my “dragon lady” moments as his mom, those angry “This is not the result I want!” rejections of his behavior. I had forgotten the specific events, but I remember the frustration. As always, I had (at least) three options: run/hide, change the situation, change yourself. I spent a lot of energy trying to change situations. “I wouldn’t be this frustrated if I could get these kids to obey me!” I tweaked and cajoled, but I never managed to break their spirits and get them to comply completely. They had their own will, just like a photograph whose focus is already determined. The one thing I can’t do with my photos in post processing is sharpen the focus. So what do I do then? Change myself. This is a fuzzy picture and it will never be crisp. But I can learn to understand fuzziness as a quality that represents a true thing in the universe and so makes a valid image.

I think I’ve evolved to be a closer approximation of the person I want to be. Less of a “dragon lady” or control freak or perfectionist. More tolerant and compassionate. More honest and willing to look at things as they are and drop the tyranny of looking at things in comparison to how I wish them to be. Kinder, more open, less anxious. Oh, but I still have some more adjustments to try. I may get closer still. Meanwhile, here are some examples of the results I got with pictures from yesterday.