My new juggling balls arrived in the mail yesterday. I like them; they have a sueded finish and are very firm, and they're a good size for my hands. I am not very good at juggling, but Raider and I have recently moved the old juggling balls from our closet onto a shelf in the living room, and we have been practicing again. The kids are learning; The Lego Savant, who is almost 11, is working very hard on perfecting what we call the "one-ball jug," which is learning to reliably pass one ball from one hand to the other and back again, making a nice relaxed arc that crosses just in front of your eyes before it drops right into the waiting hand--it's less about catching than it is about aim, making tosses so accurate that your catching hand hardly needs to move and you don't have to think about it at all. When you can do this well with one ball, it's a surprisingly short step to doing it with three.
Raider can pick up the balls after months or years away and immediately start juggling, the balls going tock-tock-tock in a steady unbroken rhythm. Word Boy said the other day, "Daddy looks so relaxed when he's juggling," and it's true. The Lego Savant, watching me just now, said, "See, you make it look possible, but not easy. Dad makes it look easy." A very apt way to put it. [The Tiny Tornado said, "Mom, can I have some ice cream? Can I have some applesauce? With cinnamon on it? Can I get my own puppy? When I'm five? Can I have a skateboard? Can I take a bath? Can I help you cook dinner? Mom, these pants have a hole in them. You have to buy me some new pants. I want new shoes. I want flip-flops. Can we get some candy at the store?"]
Back when we had no kids, a lot more energy, and not one full-time job between us--and therefore all the time in the world to do anything we wanted--we juggled a lot. Raider taught me, and I got pretty good. Not as good as him. But good enough. We'd put on some music with a good beat and stand facing each other as we juggled in time to the beat. Michelle Shocked's old album Short Sharp Shocked has quite a few perfect juggling songs, and we often used that. Of course, it wasn't her "old" album back then.
Now, when you get into the groove with your juggling, it's like you slip into an alternate, slower timestream. Instead of scrambling to pluck each ball out of the air before it falls, your hand has to wait for it to fall effortlessly into your palm. You can feel the rhythm of it in your whole body. Your eyes focus somewhere in the distance; you're not looking at the balls, just seeing them as blurs in your near vision while you take in the view out the window. You start to have time to fill. You can walk; you can talk; you can toss one ball up as high as you can; you can start making smaller, lower arcs so the balls pass faster and faster, and then you can slow it back down again; you can start throwing the balls so they go outside each other's paths instead of inside them.
Raider and I used to focus on each other's eyes while we juggled. We still would, except that right now I can't keep the balls going long enough. He stands there, juggling steadily, while I juggle a little, drop a little, chase my balls around. Part of why we're practicing is because I'd like to do this again. It's surprisingly intense juggling in time while looking into someone's eyes. Many years ago, our friend Adrianne was watching us. "Jeez, you guys," she said after a couple of minutes. "Get a room!
We used to be able to do tricks together, stealing balls from each other or passing them back and forth. Sometimes you can throw a fourth ball to Raider and he will just grab it out of the air and boom! He's juggling four.
Juggling is a good thing to learn if you need to practice making mistakes. Because everyone drops balls. Even Raider, though not very often. When I was learning, sometimes I'd drop a ball and that was OK. Sometimes I would drop two, and Raider would say, "Double drop! Impressive." Sometimes I would drop all three, and he'd throw his hands in the air in mock triumph: "It's a triple drop! Yay, Su!" Now we cheer for the children. They don't find it quite as funny as I did.
Just now I was juggling--making it look possible, as the Lego Savant says, which is actually an improvement from just a few days ago when the sound of my balls hitting the hardwood floor was like a steady artillery bombardment. For a minute or two, I crossed into that other time stream. For about fifteen minutes, I juggled, passing in and out of it, clumsy to graceful and back again, with the Tiny Tornado's endless string of chatter fading into a steady buzz in the back of my mind. "Mom, do monkeys have bones? When I'm five, will my teeth start falling out? Is there much blood when your tooth falls out? How old do I have to be to drive a car? Is driving a car fun? Will you make my dog an eye patch? Aargh, matey! I think my fever's coming back. I'll get the thermometer. Can we have dutch baby for dinner? Do you have enough dollars for me to get a skateboard?"
I had forgotten that the peaceful rhythm of juggling is also a meditative path to serenity. I shall have to try not to forget again.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Trouble with Word Boy
I have a small e-mail list of friends I send long rambly notes to pretty regularly. Except not lately. A couple of months ago, I started one of these e-mails like this:
It's also true that I am tremendously busy. I tend to be on the go all day long these days, between the house and errands and homeschooling and keeping the Tiny Tornado from setting things on fire. And then, once we get the kids to bed in the evening, I just want my down time. I settle into The Big Chair and read, or sometimes watch TV (if I can pry the remote out of David's hands--he takes his downtime at night by playing video games). Lately, since I took up amigurumi a couple of weeks ago, I might listen to an audiobook while I crochet. So, no urgency to write, no time to write: no writing. Except that I miss it. And I think it's pretty important in my life. And I have a book project in mind that I want to do something with--I've wanted to write a book since I was, what, 3? 4? And no matter how good my life is otherwise (and it is very good), I'm going to regret it on my death bed if I never do it. Even if it's a bad book. Even if no one ever reads it.
So, I decided that in May I would commit to writing 750 words every day. Not necessarily project-related words. Just words. Just practicing. Just seeing what writing might be like in this new time in my life when I am in so much less pain than I ever have been before in my adult life, and so much less driven by anxiety. I suppose it's a good sign that I felt like getting started a day early.
But what shall I write about today?
One thing that has been heavy on my mind is that Word Boy is struggling with anxiety and perfectionism. None of us is exactly the most flexible or resilient of people (except the Tiny Tornado, who swam in from outside our gene pool), and Word Boy has hit a rough patch. He doesn't like questions that don't have right answers; he gets upset if he doesn't understand his math the moment he looks at the page; an art curriculum that gave him open-ended "try this!" assignments reduced him to panic attacks. His perfectionism cripples him; he has practically no problem-solving skills because he's so afraid of getting the wrong answer; he worries so much about making other people happy that it is like pulling teeth to get him to say what he wants.
At least we're past the roughest stage, when he was having anxiety attacks that lasted for hours at a time. Now his "fits," as we call them, during which he breathes rapidly and his whole body shudders, are usually quite short. The improvement has been primarily because of behavioral interventions--to the extent that he can control these things, we have encouraged him to control them, by sending him out of the room to get himself together, say, or simply flogging him along to whatever needs to be done--I remember at the Midwinter Gathering in February, he started to have a fit about going to childcare (which he loved! So, what the heck with the fit?) and I pretty much pushed him down the hall to the childcare room, where he pulled himself together within a couple of minutes of my leaving him, and went on to have a great afternoon. If I'd engaged with him, we could have been stuck all afternoon.
So, now he still has multiple fits per day, at unpredictable intervals, but they're usually short. Still, we'd rather see even fewer of them, and, more importantly, I'd like to see some progress on the cognitive side of things: improvements in his perfectionism, improvements in his problem-solving skills, improvement in his resiliency when faced with minor setbacks.
I don't quite know how to get that. We were seeing an excellent therapist, but by his own admission Word Boy's problems were outside his area of expertise--he was super-good on the specific behavioral stuff (witness the complete extinction of The Lego Savant's elevator phobia, for instance) but completely lost when it came to sussing out the underlying mental issues and helping the kids deal with them. I am looking for someone else--there is a therapist I heard of on the west side of the state who specializes in anxiety in gifted kids, and I'm going to at least ask her for a consultation or a referral. She's probably too far away to work with regularly, but hopefully she's willing to be a resource. Maybe she'd even be willing to consult with Word Boy's old therapist--with whom he has great rapport, and who is willing to educate himself.
The gifted thing matters. I used to think it didn't, and I felt that one advantage of homeschooling was that I didn't have to worry about whether my kids fit some criterion for "giftedness" or not. I have, or at least did have when I was younger, a whole array of issues related to being identified as a gifted kid, and the services I did, and did not, receive, and I have been glad to avoid having to navigate that for them within a school system. I also have dormant issues around academic achievement and hoped that by homeschooling I could avoid re-awakening them, and avoid passing them on to my children.
But the pattern of Word Boy's perfectionism and anxiety is a classic pattern for gifted kids. So I find myself seeking out information on raising gifted kids. Less of it is useful than I had hoped, and it brings me into contact (so far, only virtually) with a lot of parents who are interested in doing competitive bragging and arguing about whether each other's kids are truly gifted.
Somewhere out there have to be parents and teachers and therapists who have helped kids navigate this as well as it can be navigated. I met one parent just last weekend, a friend-of-a-friend whose kids are grown now but who recognized exactly the kinds of issues we're dealing with, and I glommed onto her like a drowning woman. When she had pried my frantic arms from around her neck and gotten her breath back, she said sure, she'd be glad to talk to me about this stuff. So that's one resource, and a very important one. But I need more. I didn't get effective treatment for my anxiety until I was in my late 20s, and I want to do better by my smart, sweet, splendid children. And I want support for me and David--so we know that we're doing the best we can.
And now--on to all that I've been neglecting: the dishes, the kids, the laundry, my shower, the homeschooling. We are doing a science experiment with radish seedlings and they need to have something done every single day, so there's no slacking on that (I called it "The Tyranny of the Radish Curriculum" and my friend Margaret said, "That right there is a chapter title." So I wrote it down.) Tomorrow: the Tiny Tornado wants a boy swim suit.
A woman whose blog I read recently posted about seeking treatment for her depression, and being really optimistic about a new medication, but worrying that being too happy would stop her from writing. I could have told her she had good reason to worry. I feel like the last few months I just haven't ever gotten to that point I used to get to, where I felt this incredible urgency to write and was going to pop if I didn't get a chance to. I blame my neurologist.
Many of you know that I have been seeing a terrific headache specialist since October. Despite some ups and downs, and some failed medication experiments, and some tweaking, I can tell you that the results have been hardly less than miraculous. After trying a couple of things that didn't help, he put me on Effexor--it's an anti-depressant, but has been very effective at treating Chronic Daily Headache as well. Well, for me, not only has it dramatically improved my headaches, but the anti-depressant part of it has eliminated Psycho Screamer Mom from my PMS (I might get a little bit cranky these days) and also made me more cheerful than I ever knew was possible. I mean, it's more than just not being anxious. It's being basically happy. I've never been a basically cheerful person; I've always tended to be kind of melancholy. This happy thing is really wonderful. I had no idea life could be like this.
It's also true that I am tremendously busy. I tend to be on the go all day long these days, between the house and errands and homeschooling and keeping the Tiny Tornado from setting things on fire. And then, once we get the kids to bed in the evening, I just want my down time. I settle into The Big Chair and read, or sometimes watch TV (if I can pry the remote out of David's hands--he takes his downtime at night by playing video games). Lately, since I took up amigurumi a couple of weeks ago, I might listen to an audiobook while I crochet. So, no urgency to write, no time to write: no writing. Except that I miss it. And I think it's pretty important in my life. And I have a book project in mind that I want to do something with--I've wanted to write a book since I was, what, 3? 4? And no matter how good my life is otherwise (and it is very good), I'm going to regret it on my death bed if I never do it. Even if it's a bad book. Even if no one ever reads it.
So, I decided that in May I would commit to writing 750 words every day. Not necessarily project-related words. Just words. Just practicing. Just seeing what writing might be like in this new time in my life when I am in so much less pain than I ever have been before in my adult life, and so much less driven by anxiety. I suppose it's a good sign that I felt like getting started a day early.
But what shall I write about today?
One thing that has been heavy on my mind is that Word Boy is struggling with anxiety and perfectionism. None of us is exactly the most flexible or resilient of people (except the Tiny Tornado, who swam in from outside our gene pool), and Word Boy has hit a rough patch. He doesn't like questions that don't have right answers; he gets upset if he doesn't understand his math the moment he looks at the page; an art curriculum that gave him open-ended "try this!" assignments reduced him to panic attacks. His perfectionism cripples him; he has practically no problem-solving skills because he's so afraid of getting the wrong answer; he worries so much about making other people happy that it is like pulling teeth to get him to say what he wants.
At least we're past the roughest stage, when he was having anxiety attacks that lasted for hours at a time. Now his "fits," as we call them, during which he breathes rapidly and his whole body shudders, are usually quite short. The improvement has been primarily because of behavioral interventions--to the extent that he can control these things, we have encouraged him to control them, by sending him out of the room to get himself together, say, or simply flogging him along to whatever needs to be done--I remember at the Midwinter Gathering in February, he started to have a fit about going to childcare (which he loved! So, what the heck with the fit?) and I pretty much pushed him down the hall to the childcare room, where he pulled himself together within a couple of minutes of my leaving him, and went on to have a great afternoon. If I'd engaged with him, we could have been stuck all afternoon.
So, now he still has multiple fits per day, at unpredictable intervals, but they're usually short. Still, we'd rather see even fewer of them, and, more importantly, I'd like to see some progress on the cognitive side of things: improvements in his perfectionism, improvements in his problem-solving skills, improvement in his resiliency when faced with minor setbacks.
I don't quite know how to get that. We were seeing an excellent therapist, but by his own admission Word Boy's problems were outside his area of expertise--he was super-good on the specific behavioral stuff (witness the complete extinction of The Lego Savant's elevator phobia, for instance) but completely lost when it came to sussing out the underlying mental issues and helping the kids deal with them. I am looking for someone else--there is a therapist I heard of on the west side of the state who specializes in anxiety in gifted kids, and I'm going to at least ask her for a consultation or a referral. She's probably too far away to work with regularly, but hopefully she's willing to be a resource. Maybe she'd even be willing to consult with Word Boy's old therapist--with whom he has great rapport, and who is willing to educate himself.
The gifted thing matters. I used to think it didn't, and I felt that one advantage of homeschooling was that I didn't have to worry about whether my kids fit some criterion for "giftedness" or not. I have, or at least did have when I was younger, a whole array of issues related to being identified as a gifted kid, and the services I did, and did not, receive, and I have been glad to avoid having to navigate that for them within a school system. I also have dormant issues around academic achievement and hoped that by homeschooling I could avoid re-awakening them, and avoid passing them on to my children.
But the pattern of Word Boy's perfectionism and anxiety is a classic pattern for gifted kids. So I find myself seeking out information on raising gifted kids. Less of it is useful than I had hoped, and it brings me into contact (so far, only virtually) with a lot of parents who are interested in doing competitive bragging and arguing about whether each other's kids are truly gifted.
Somewhere out there have to be parents and teachers and therapists who have helped kids navigate this as well as it can be navigated. I met one parent just last weekend, a friend-of-a-friend whose kids are grown now but who recognized exactly the kinds of issues we're dealing with, and I glommed onto her like a drowning woman. When she had pried my frantic arms from around her neck and gotten her breath back, she said sure, she'd be glad to talk to me about this stuff. So that's one resource, and a very important one. But I need more. I didn't get effective treatment for my anxiety until I was in my late 20s, and I want to do better by my smart, sweet, splendid children. And I want support for me and David--so we know that we're doing the best we can.
And now--on to all that I've been neglecting: the dishes, the kids, the laundry, my shower, the homeschooling. We are doing a science experiment with radish seedlings and they need to have something done every single day, so there's no slacking on that (I called it "The Tyranny of the Radish Curriculum" and my friend Margaret said, "That right there is a chapter title." So I wrote it down.) Tomorrow: the Tiny Tornado wants a boy swim suit.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
2011 Reading Report Part 1
It's January first, so I can tally up my 2011 reading. I expected to find that it had been pretty light this year--it feels like for most of December I didn't even have a book going. I told David, "I've read all the books!" I just haven't happened across anything that grabbed my attention.
Still, I read quite a bit: 230 books in all. Last year I read 201. Both of these numbers are down from all the other years since 2006, when I started my nifty little spreadsheet. I had been reading around 300 books a year. I guess I've been slacking off since Yehva learned to walk and began requiring constant supervision.
That 230 doesn't count 55 books I started and didn't finish. I sometimes write a very short comment about a book, just a few words, and I find it fun looking at my comments for the books I abandoned: "What a blowhard!" "Nothing new here." "Very interesting but a long article would have sufficed." "Piece of crap." "Such bad writing." "Remembered that I tried to read this before and hated it then, too." "Apparently I was not actually in the mood for a 600-page biography of Ronald Reagan."
I read a lot of genre fiction this year that I didn't give my highest grade to but that I flagged as "recommended"--which usually means, "You'd like it if you like that kind of thing." All of Anne Perry's William Monk mysteries fell into this category (and, yes, I read all 17 of them, in order, because I am like that), as well as Lisa Lutz's hilarious Spellman series, which I highly recommend if you need a frothy something for an afternoon at the beach or next to the fire.
There were also a couple of science fiction books in this category, though I didn't read a lot of sci-fi this year. David and I were talking the other day about the amount of mental energy it can take to get into a meaty science fiction novel, especially the kind where the author drops you into a universe and doesn't explain anything, just leaves you to figure it all out as you go along. The point of our conversation was that neither of us has had the mental energy lately. But I liked Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three, and David and I both liked James Corey's Leviathan Wakes. George R.R. Martin blurbed it as a "kickass space opera," and if there's one thing I like, it's a kickass space opera. I pretty much like anything with people living on icy asteroids in a colonized solar system or in big ships slowly traversing the vast reaches of space.
In non-fiction, I flagged a handful of books that didn't rise to greatness but that I thought were good reads, including Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, which I found thoughtful and sympathetic and appreciated for its avoidance of the obvious cheap jokes; The End of the Obesity Epidemic, which was surprising in not being polemical but instead takes a careful and soberingly critical look at the biases and assumptions of all sides in the current debate. Not a great book to read if you're looking for someone to validate your own point of view (whatever that might be) but very thought-provoking. And Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture was the best book I've read on that topic.
Next I'll tackle the very short list of books I gave my highest rating to. But I slept late this morning and haven't fed the parrots yet, so it will have to wait awhile.
Still, I read quite a bit: 230 books in all. Last year I read 201. Both of these numbers are down from all the other years since 2006, when I started my nifty little spreadsheet. I had been reading around 300 books a year. I guess I've been slacking off since Yehva learned to walk and began requiring constant supervision.
That 230 doesn't count 55 books I started and didn't finish. I sometimes write a very short comment about a book, just a few words, and I find it fun looking at my comments for the books I abandoned: "What a blowhard!" "Nothing new here." "Very interesting but a long article would have sufficed." "Piece of crap." "Such bad writing." "Remembered that I tried to read this before and hated it then, too." "Apparently I was not actually in the mood for a 600-page biography of Ronald Reagan."
I read a lot of genre fiction this year that I didn't give my highest grade to but that I flagged as "recommended"--which usually means, "You'd like it if you like that kind of thing." All of Anne Perry's William Monk mysteries fell into this category (and, yes, I read all 17 of them, in order, because I am like that), as well as Lisa Lutz's hilarious Spellman series, which I highly recommend if you need a frothy something for an afternoon at the beach or next to the fire.
There were also a couple of science fiction books in this category, though I didn't read a lot of sci-fi this year. David and I were talking the other day about the amount of mental energy it can take to get into a meaty science fiction novel, especially the kind where the author drops you into a universe and doesn't explain anything, just leaves you to figure it all out as you go along. The point of our conversation was that neither of us has had the mental energy lately. But I liked Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three, and David and I both liked James Corey's Leviathan Wakes. George R.R. Martin blurbed it as a "kickass space opera," and if there's one thing I like, it's a kickass space opera. I pretty much like anything with people living on icy asteroids in a colonized solar system or in big ships slowly traversing the vast reaches of space.
In non-fiction, I flagged a handful of books that didn't rise to greatness but that I thought were good reads, including Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, which I found thoughtful and sympathetic and appreciated for its avoidance of the obvious cheap jokes; The End of the Obesity Epidemic, which was surprising in not being polemical but instead takes a careful and soberingly critical look at the biases and assumptions of all sides in the current debate. Not a great book to read if you're looking for someone to validate your own point of view (whatever that might be) but very thought-provoking. And Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture was the best book I've read on that topic.
Next I'll tackle the very short list of books I gave my highest rating to. But I slept late this morning and haven't fed the parrots yet, so it will have to wait awhile.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Misreading Masculinity
I recently read the book Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture, by Thomas Newkirk. I've read a lot of the current boys-in-peril/misunderstood-boys literature, and this is surely the strongest of the ones I've read.
I don't have time to do a full write-up, and the book is already overdue at the library, so I just want to use this as a placeholder for a few of the quotes from the book that I flagged as I was reading. Here they are:
Why, then, is violent content in classical literature perceived as nonthreatening (even uplifting and humanizing), when the same violent conflict in more popular media is seen as provocative and dangerous? The answer may reside not in the representation of violence, but in the way the audience for that violence is imagined. The reader of classic literature, or someone who rented the incredibly violent movie Titus (a rendition of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus) would be assumed to be part of a nonviolent literate social class who would approach the film with the proper aesthetic distance. There would be no danger of suggestibility in these activities because they would be intelligently mediated by the reader or viewer. No such assumption is made about someone watching a much less graphically violent movie, such as one from the Lethal Weapon series. The nonelite group that chooses to watch the more popular version of violence is perceived as more susceptible to suggestion, less capable of keeping the proper distance, more volatile. All of which leads to the question, Is the issue really about violence, or is it about the social group (and age group) the violence appeals to? (p. 96)
*****
The [research] approach is circular, assuming what is presumes to prove. It is assumed that the children have nothing interesting to say about the visual stimulus--so they aren't asked. The film is treated not as a text that is interpreted by the child, not as something processed in any way. The child is presumed to have virtually no capacity to interpret, to resist or mediate.... In this huge body of work, students were rarely interviewed or allowed to discuss reactions or interpretations--because it was assumed they did not have real interpretations, only reactions to stimuli. (pp. 98-99)
*****
One final problem with traditional research on media violence needs to be noted. Few shows that contain violence are about only violence; most action movies also stress teamwork, loyalty, perseverance, ingenuity, problem solving, stoicism, athletic fitness, courage, and frequently patriotism. The action hero typically has to overcome adversity, failure, and sometimes discouragement at having to face a superior force. If 200,000 exposures to violence cause a person to be violent, does the same number of exposures to teamwork create an ethic of cooperation? Does 200,000 exposures to ingenuity create a desire to be ingenious? Why should one message--that of the acceptability of violence--be the sole effect of these shows when even cartoons are about much more than that? The alarmist claims about the effects of media violence rest on research that reduces complex narratives with multiple messages to simple "stimuli" that work automatically, like a carcinogen, at an unconscious level. Not only is the media narrative reduced; the young viewers too are reduced, to being unconscious reactors with no interpretive responses. (pp. 102-103)
I don't have time to do a full write-up, and the book is already overdue at the library, so I just want to use this as a placeholder for a few of the quotes from the book that I flagged as I was reading. Here they are:
Why, then, is violent content in classical literature perceived as nonthreatening (even uplifting and humanizing), when the same violent conflict in more popular media is seen as provocative and dangerous? The answer may reside not in the representation of violence, but in the way the audience for that violence is imagined. The reader of classic literature, or someone who rented the incredibly violent movie Titus (a rendition of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus) would be assumed to be part of a nonviolent literate social class who would approach the film with the proper aesthetic distance. There would be no danger of suggestibility in these activities because they would be intelligently mediated by the reader or viewer. No such assumption is made about someone watching a much less graphically violent movie, such as one from the Lethal Weapon series. The nonelite group that chooses to watch the more popular version of violence is perceived as more susceptible to suggestion, less capable of keeping the proper distance, more volatile. All of which leads to the question, Is the issue really about violence, or is it about the social group (and age group) the violence appeals to? (p. 96)
*****
The [research] approach is circular, assuming what is presumes to prove. It is assumed that the children have nothing interesting to say about the visual stimulus--so they aren't asked. The film is treated not as a text that is interpreted by the child, not as something processed in any way. The child is presumed to have virtually no capacity to interpret, to resist or mediate.... In this huge body of work, students were rarely interviewed or allowed to discuss reactions or interpretations--because it was assumed they did not have real interpretations, only reactions to stimuli. (pp. 98-99)
*****
One final problem with traditional research on media violence needs to be noted. Few shows that contain violence are about only violence; most action movies also stress teamwork, loyalty, perseverance, ingenuity, problem solving, stoicism, athletic fitness, courage, and frequently patriotism. The action hero typically has to overcome adversity, failure, and sometimes discouragement at having to face a superior force. If 200,000 exposures to violence cause a person to be violent, does the same number of exposures to teamwork create an ethic of cooperation? Does 200,000 exposures to ingenuity create a desire to be ingenious? Why should one message--that of the acceptability of violence--be the sole effect of these shows when even cartoons are about much more than that? The alarmist claims about the effects of media violence rest on research that reduces complex narratives with multiple messages to simple "stimuli" that work automatically, like a carcinogen, at an unconscious level. Not only is the media narrative reduced; the young viewers too are reduced, to being unconscious reactors with no interpretive responses. (pp. 102-103)
Saturday, September 17, 2011
So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish
I have really wrestled with this post. When I'm not actually writing, I can feel it taking shape in my mind and it seems like it's all there, ready to write down. But when I sit down to write, I can't find my way into it. But I'm tired of carrying it around so I am going to finish it this time even if it doesn't come out right.
I have laid down my membership in my monthly meeting.
That's the short version, and there have been recent days when I thought about just plopping that onto my Facebook wall as a status update and getting it over with. But among the people who already know this, some have asked me to talk about why and how this happened, so I will now attempt the long version.
*stares out window, taps fingers on table for awhile*
The long version is hard.
I'm not interested in talking about any of the specific ways my Friends meeting has been hard for me, or laying out the various problems I see in contemporary unprogrammed Quakerism. I've been wrestling with both of those things for several years, and one of the nice things about finally making the break is that I don't have to keep thinking about them. It's quite a relief, honestly; an end to a long, hard struggle.
Besides, I could just as easily write a long thing about what I think works in Quakerism, and the many ways my monthly meeting is awesome--because it is. This is less a drama than a quiet breakup, like when those two nice people you thought would be together forever announce that they are divorcing but plan to remain friends.
It really does feel like a breakup. Like the breakups I've been through before, the final decision was less in response to a single event or problem and more a moment of clarity after a long period of trying really hard to fix things.
I think the breakup comes now because I have entered a period of lots of movement in my life. For most of the past year, I was feeling stuck and discouraged, wanting to make changes and not feeling able to. But in the last few months, suddently those changes have been not only possible, but easy and joyful. This is one of those changes, I think, a time of movement after being stuck for a long time: annoyed by the same things, hurt by the same things, frustrated by not finding answers to the same tired questions. I felt blocked with Quakerism, not able to find a way forward when something in me was straining at the leash. But I also felt trapped in Quakerism, unable to move away from it because I could not imagine that there was any other spiritual home for me. I assumed that liberal Quakerism was the best fit I would I find, that any other group of religious people would only be a worse fit.
But "she's the best I can hope for" is a bad reason to stay with someone. I have become optimistic about the possibility that there may actually be a spiritual community somewhere else that will serve me better in this new time in my life. There's a point during the ending of a relationship when you start to get excited about the possibilities that open up if the relationship ends. All the opportunities that have been forclosed by the success of that relationship open back up again.
I have been reminded, too, that it is better to be single than to stay in a bad relationship. I'm feeling willing to live with either of those options, open to the kind of changes that worshipping in a new way might bring me, and open to the possibility, too, that I'll wind up unchurched.
I don't quite know what my next step is. Laying down my membership has been a mental and emotional relief, and boy howdy has it cleared my calendar! I'm not sure if I should turn right around and head off to church on Sunday morning, or wait awhile before I start dating. Honestly, the search feels kind of exhausting: it's a lot of work to find your way into a community, and that's after the work of finding one you might want to be part of. I don't know if I'm ready to start yet. On the other hand, I feel eager to find out what's next, and may be too restless to sit around home too many Sundays in a row.
A small group of us began weekday morning worship at the meetinghouse two weeks ago, and I've been going every morning despite this decision. I don't feel quite sure about it; sometimes a clean break is best, for both parties. I've laid down all my responsiblities to the meeting, and maybe it will send a mixed message that I'm still worshipping there five mornings a week. But I don't have a strong feeling that it's wrong for me to be there, so I may wear that sword as long as I am able. It may help with the transition, or it may turn out to be too awkward, or it may ultimately prove to be something that is holding me back. But I like it and I think I'm going to keep doing it for now.
I plan to stay involved with FLGBTQC as well; everyone should plan to see me and the kids in Wisconsin next February for the midwinter gathering. I'm less sure about summer gatherings; we may not be able to afford the summer gathering without the generous stipend my monthly meeting gives to children who are attending. Time will tell.
This is not a bad thing, this breakup. It's a necessary thing. It feels right, like it is the answer to many painful questions I've been carrying for too long. Of course, I've traded those for a whole new set of questions, but I like these new ones.
As usual, our friend Walt Whitman has some words that speak to my condition. This is from section 46 of Song of Myself:
I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.
***
Sit awhile dear son,
Here are bisuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
I have laid down my membership in my monthly meeting.
That's the short version, and there have been recent days when I thought about just plopping that onto my Facebook wall as a status update and getting it over with. But among the people who already know this, some have asked me to talk about why and how this happened, so I will now attempt the long version.
*stares out window, taps fingers on table for awhile*
The long version is hard.
I'm not interested in talking about any of the specific ways my Friends meeting has been hard for me, or laying out the various problems I see in contemporary unprogrammed Quakerism. I've been wrestling with both of those things for several years, and one of the nice things about finally making the break is that I don't have to keep thinking about them. It's quite a relief, honestly; an end to a long, hard struggle.
Besides, I could just as easily write a long thing about what I think works in Quakerism, and the many ways my monthly meeting is awesome--because it is. This is less a drama than a quiet breakup, like when those two nice people you thought would be together forever announce that they are divorcing but plan to remain friends.
It really does feel like a breakup. Like the breakups I've been through before, the final decision was less in response to a single event or problem and more a moment of clarity after a long period of trying really hard to fix things.
I think the breakup comes now because I have entered a period of lots of movement in my life. For most of the past year, I was feeling stuck and discouraged, wanting to make changes and not feeling able to. But in the last few months, suddently those changes have been not only possible, but easy and joyful. This is one of those changes, I think, a time of movement after being stuck for a long time: annoyed by the same things, hurt by the same things, frustrated by not finding answers to the same tired questions. I felt blocked with Quakerism, not able to find a way forward when something in me was straining at the leash. But I also felt trapped in Quakerism, unable to move away from it because I could not imagine that there was any other spiritual home for me. I assumed that liberal Quakerism was the best fit I would I find, that any other group of religious people would only be a worse fit.
But "she's the best I can hope for" is a bad reason to stay with someone. I have become optimistic about the possibility that there may actually be a spiritual community somewhere else that will serve me better in this new time in my life. There's a point during the ending of a relationship when you start to get excited about the possibilities that open up if the relationship ends. All the opportunities that have been forclosed by the success of that relationship open back up again.
I have been reminded, too, that it is better to be single than to stay in a bad relationship. I'm feeling willing to live with either of those options, open to the kind of changes that worshipping in a new way might bring me, and open to the possibility, too, that I'll wind up unchurched.
I don't quite know what my next step is. Laying down my membership has been a mental and emotional relief, and boy howdy has it cleared my calendar! I'm not sure if I should turn right around and head off to church on Sunday morning, or wait awhile before I start dating. Honestly, the search feels kind of exhausting: it's a lot of work to find your way into a community, and that's after the work of finding one you might want to be part of. I don't know if I'm ready to start yet. On the other hand, I feel eager to find out what's next, and may be too restless to sit around home too many Sundays in a row.
A small group of us began weekday morning worship at the meetinghouse two weeks ago, and I've been going every morning despite this decision. I don't feel quite sure about it; sometimes a clean break is best, for both parties. I've laid down all my responsiblities to the meeting, and maybe it will send a mixed message that I'm still worshipping there five mornings a week. But I don't have a strong feeling that it's wrong for me to be there, so I may wear that sword as long as I am able. It may help with the transition, or it may turn out to be too awkward, or it may ultimately prove to be something that is holding me back. But I like it and I think I'm going to keep doing it for now.
I plan to stay involved with FLGBTQC as well; everyone should plan to see me and the kids in Wisconsin next February for the midwinter gathering. I'm less sure about summer gatherings; we may not be able to afford the summer gathering without the generous stipend my monthly meeting gives to children who are attending. Time will tell.
This is not a bad thing, this breakup. It's a necessary thing. It feels right, like it is the answer to many painful questions I've been carrying for too long. Of course, I've traded those for a whole new set of questions, but I like these new ones.
As usual, our friend Walt Whitman has some words that speak to my condition. This is from section 46 of Song of Myself:
I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.
***
Sit awhile dear son,
Here are bisuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Taking the Plunge
Today, Eric, who is ten, went down the water slide for the first time...and the second, third, fourth, and at least fifth times, too, because the water slide is awesome. His friend Alexander encouraged him to do it--and Eric was overheard telling Alexander, "Thank you for talking me into it." But he also told me, "I was really nervous, but then I thought about Turnaround and I just decided to do it."
Turnaround is a cognitive-behavioral based anxiety program for children, and we've been using it for the last few months. Created by psychologists, it's an audio and workbook program with ten sessions. It's organized into a narrative about six kids with anxiety who go camping with their counselors. Each of the kids in the stories represents a certain form of anxiety: separation anxiety, perfectionism, panic attacks, general anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety. Each of the ten sessions either educates the kids about their anxiety--what it is, where it came from, how common it is, or helps them learn to recognize and name their distorted thinking, or offers strategies for dealing with specific situations. Or, often, some combination of those things.
For instance, several early sessions focused on various forms of distorted thinkings--what the program calls "Wacky Thoughts," including all-or-nothing thinking, mind-reading, making predictions ("It will never work out"), and "Dark Shades," which lead you to look for "problems, dangers, and bad stuff."
The last two sessions, though, have been especially useful for both Eric and Carl: Day 7, "Madison's Crushed Hope," and Day 8, "Taking the Plunge"--which is the one Eric specifically thought of today when he was wanting to try the water slide.
"Madison's Crushed Hope" introduced the boys to the idea that when you are learning something new, there will inevitably be a period of time during which you will feel like you are failing at it. At this point, it's easy for anxious kids to bail out, to say, "I didn't want to do that anyway, it's dumb," or to otherwise avoid the situation. But, the program says, if you find a way to persevere, you will eventually get to a stage of feeling confident and encouraged by your progress.
In their workbooks, the boys were asked to think about things they were interested in learning or working on, and consider whether they'd experienced this. Both boys immediately were able to answer this. Eric said that he used to be in the "crushed hope" stage about handwriting, and about reading, but that he got past that to feeling encouraged about those two things. Carl recognized immediately that he's been struggling with crushed hope in his attempts to learn to ride a two-wheeled bike; in fact, just a few days before we listened to this session, he had said, "I don't think I want to learn to ride a two-wheeler." David and I immediately recognized what was going on--he was feeling discouraged and wished he could just give up. It was interesting to me that, once this phenomenon was pointed out to him, he could see it, too.
The last session we've listened to was number 8 (of 10), Taking the Plunge, which told the kids, among other things, that it can be important not to let yourself spend too much time thinking about something, but to just find a way to jump in and do it--otherwise you reinforce your anxiety, and it can get harder and harder to take action. That's what Eric was thinking of when he decided to try the waterslide. He said to me on the way home from the waterpark, "I took the plunge, Mom!"
He did. And he was immediately rewarded for it because going down the waterslide was fun. But he also told me that sometimes it's hard for him not to be able to do the things his friends can--to cimb as high in the tree, or jump into the pool. Or go down the waterslide. And now he can go down the waterslide, and this way that his anxiety keeps him from feeling fully at ease with his friends has been diminished.
I am really impressed with Turnaround. It's very well-produced; the voice actors, both adults and chlildren, are very good. The design of the packaging and workbook is very well done, and the content is excellent. This program takes cognitive-behavioral techniques and presents them in ways that make a lot of sense to the kids. There are also two CDs for parents that cover anxiety and CBT in more technical terms, and that also talk about how to be your child's ally, and how to remain connected with your child when their anxiety is wearing you out and making your family life harder.
My only quibble is one of the characters, Crank. Crank is a personification of the adrenal system, essentially, and is used to help kids understand the physical sensations that can accompany anxiety. My complaint about Crank is that he is personified as a samurai warrior, and the voice acting for his character edges a little too close to ethnic stereotype for me to feel entirely comfortable listening to him.
We got Turnaround because we thought Eric needed something, but we weren't sure he needed therapy or, honestly, that we could cope with a commitment to therapy given our other responsibilities. I had read a lot of books for parents of anxious kids, and they were helpful, but it was hard to put their information into practice because Eric resisted hearing things from me. Turnaround talks right to the kids, which has worked much better for us, and it also gives us a structure for talking about these issues when we're not right in the middle of a meltdown. When I ordered it, I thought of it as a thing we would try to see whether it would save us from needing to go ahead with therapy. So far, I think it's going to be enough for Eric.
There are 10 sessions in the program, and you can do a couple of them a week. We never manage that, we've been working through it much more slowly than that. But I expect that once we have finished all ten, we will simply go back and start listening to them again from the beginning, to help the lessons sink in.
I've been so impressed with the program that I've been recommending it left and right to other parents of anxious kids. I feel like I'm being able to give Eric and Carl tools, at the ages of 7 and 10, that I didn't have for dealing with my anxiety until I was almost 30, and it's giving our whole family a shared vocabulary for describing thoughts, emotions, and coping strategies.
And you can see for yourself, from Eric's experience with the waterslide, that he is really taking it in and putting it to use. It has been such a gift to our family.
Turnaround is a cognitive-behavioral based anxiety program for children, and we've been using it for the last few months. Created by psychologists, it's an audio and workbook program with ten sessions. It's organized into a narrative about six kids with anxiety who go camping with their counselors. Each of the kids in the stories represents a certain form of anxiety: separation anxiety, perfectionism, panic attacks, general anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety. Each of the ten sessions either educates the kids about their anxiety--what it is, where it came from, how common it is, or helps them learn to recognize and name their distorted thinking, or offers strategies for dealing with specific situations. Or, often, some combination of those things.
For instance, several early sessions focused on various forms of distorted thinkings--what the program calls "Wacky Thoughts," including all-or-nothing thinking, mind-reading, making predictions ("It will never work out"), and "Dark Shades," which lead you to look for "problems, dangers, and bad stuff."
The last two sessions, though, have been especially useful for both Eric and Carl: Day 7, "Madison's Crushed Hope," and Day 8, "Taking the Plunge"--which is the one Eric specifically thought of today when he was wanting to try the water slide.
"Madison's Crushed Hope" introduced the boys to the idea that when you are learning something new, there will inevitably be a period of time during which you will feel like you are failing at it. At this point, it's easy for anxious kids to bail out, to say, "I didn't want to do that anyway, it's dumb," or to otherwise avoid the situation. But, the program says, if you find a way to persevere, you will eventually get to a stage of feeling confident and encouraged by your progress.
In their workbooks, the boys were asked to think about things they were interested in learning or working on, and consider whether they'd experienced this. Both boys immediately were able to answer this. Eric said that he used to be in the "crushed hope" stage about handwriting, and about reading, but that he got past that to feeling encouraged about those two things. Carl recognized immediately that he's been struggling with crushed hope in his attempts to learn to ride a two-wheeled bike; in fact, just a few days before we listened to this session, he had said, "I don't think I want to learn to ride a two-wheeler." David and I immediately recognized what was going on--he was feeling discouraged and wished he could just give up. It was interesting to me that, once this phenomenon was pointed out to him, he could see it, too.
The last session we've listened to was number 8 (of 10), Taking the Plunge, which told the kids, among other things, that it can be important not to let yourself spend too much time thinking about something, but to just find a way to jump in and do it--otherwise you reinforce your anxiety, and it can get harder and harder to take action. That's what Eric was thinking of when he decided to try the waterslide. He said to me on the way home from the waterpark, "I took the plunge, Mom!"
He did. And he was immediately rewarded for it because going down the waterslide was fun. But he also told me that sometimes it's hard for him not to be able to do the things his friends can--to cimb as high in the tree, or jump into the pool. Or go down the waterslide. And now he can go down the waterslide, and this way that his anxiety keeps him from feeling fully at ease with his friends has been diminished.
I am really impressed with Turnaround. It's very well-produced; the voice actors, both adults and chlildren, are very good. The design of the packaging and workbook is very well done, and the content is excellent. This program takes cognitive-behavioral techniques and presents them in ways that make a lot of sense to the kids. There are also two CDs for parents that cover anxiety and CBT in more technical terms, and that also talk about how to be your child's ally, and how to remain connected with your child when their anxiety is wearing you out and making your family life harder.
My only quibble is one of the characters, Crank. Crank is a personification of the adrenal system, essentially, and is used to help kids understand the physical sensations that can accompany anxiety. My complaint about Crank is that he is personified as a samurai warrior, and the voice acting for his character edges a little too close to ethnic stereotype for me to feel entirely comfortable listening to him.
We got Turnaround because we thought Eric needed something, but we weren't sure he needed therapy or, honestly, that we could cope with a commitment to therapy given our other responsibilities. I had read a lot of books for parents of anxious kids, and they were helpful, but it was hard to put their information into practice because Eric resisted hearing things from me. Turnaround talks right to the kids, which has worked much better for us, and it also gives us a structure for talking about these issues when we're not right in the middle of a meltdown. When I ordered it, I thought of it as a thing we would try to see whether it would save us from needing to go ahead with therapy. So far, I think it's going to be enough for Eric.
There are 10 sessions in the program, and you can do a couple of them a week. We never manage that, we've been working through it much more slowly than that. But I expect that once we have finished all ten, we will simply go back and start listening to them again from the beginning, to help the lessons sink in.
I've been so impressed with the program that I've been recommending it left and right to other parents of anxious kids. I feel like I'm being able to give Eric and Carl tools, at the ages of 7 and 10, that I didn't have for dealing with my anxiety until I was almost 30, and it's giving our whole family a shared vocabulary for describing thoughts, emotions, and coping strategies.
And you can see for yourself, from Eric's experience with the waterslide, that he is really taking it in and putting it to use. It has been such a gift to our family.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
An Unfailing Sufficiency: Up Late, Thinking About Whitman
All this week, I've been waking up at some point during the night, and then I'm awake for an hour or so before I can go back to sleep. I recently read an article that said a lot of people do this and it is apparently normal, and that's probably where I got the idea. I'm getting a little tired of it, though--I like nights when I sleep straight through.
I do various things with my hour. Sometimes I read a book, if I've got one going, or watch a little TV. Or check my e-mail and write long notes to friends. But tonight, I'm thinking about Walt Whitman, which I'm sure is how many insomniacs spend their nights.
Specifically, I'm thinking about Walt Whitman, and me as a high school freshman reading him for the first time in American Literature. The Whitman poems we read in class--and we're talking about 1979, here, so my memory may be faulty--were the most schoolroom-ish of his poems. We read "O Captain, My Captain," probably because it was short and it rhymed and it had no sex in it. But it's a terrible introduction to Whitman, a weak example of his work and not at all typical. I'm sure we read When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. And we read, I seem to remember, Starting from Paumanok, though looking at it again that seems unlikely, what with "sexual organs and acts" there in line 178. It was either "Starting from Paumanok," or one of the other boring ones.
Anyway, it wasn't a very auspicious introduction, yet somehow I fell in love. I think part of why I fell in love was my American Literature teacher, whom I did not, overall, care for, because he was dismissive of me, and he looked at my breasts a lot, and his idea of a final exam in literature was to have us memorize 100 titles and publication dates. But I seem to remember him reading aloud from Whitman in class, and reading well, and reading with passion. And I remember a poem I hadn't liked on the page becoming more alluring when I heard him read it.
Anyway, I bought a copy of Leaves of Grass at the bookstore in the mall.
I tell you, of all the things I've ever gotten rid of in my life, that first copy of Leaves of Grass is one of two I regret. It was just a cheap Signet edition, and I carried it around with me from 1979 until just a few years ago, so it was spine-broken and the pages were starting to come unglued. I had marked the poems I liked with paper clips, and they rusted and left marks. It was in terrible shape, and it made sense to let it go and get a nicer copy. But I shouldn't have done it.
Anyway, those paper clips would be an interesting glimpse into my teenage psyche. I was intimidated by the longer poems; they were just incomprehensible to me. But I loved, for instance, "I Saw In Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing," and I memorized it so well that I believe I can recite it to this day. It's short enough to just give it to you right here:
I loved this poem for what it said about friendship, which of course was the most important thing in my life at 14 and 15 and 16. I liked it because I imagined Whitman saw that tree while taking a long solitary ramble, which was something I also did a lot of. I liked the sound of "rude, unbending, lusty." It was one of the first poems I ever read that seemed to me to be speaking my own thoughts.
Another little fragment I adored--and memorized, which was easy because it's only about 3 lines, was this:
I believe that, more than once, as a young lesbian, I slipped a woman a note with this poem written in it as an act of seduction.
But the poem I loved best as a teenager and young adult is a longer poem called "To You," which distinguishes it not at all from a number of Whitman's poems that start in exactly that same way. Here it is.
By God, I loved that poem, and I still do. As a teenager, I felt that Whitman was speaking right to me, in all my adolescent insecurity, and his voice was tremendously reassuring:
Nobody but Whitman was saying things like that to me, God knows. I loved its tallying of my gifts, its promises for the future.
But I also loved the egalitarianism of the poem:
It took me awhile, as a teenager, to parse that image, but once I got it, I loved it. Whitman was saying: Everybody gets a halo.
I loved Whitman's commitment to the male and the female in this poem. His relationship to the female is pretty complicated, and not always what we might wish it to be, but look at him here! I have spent my life listening to people say we can't use "he and she" in writing because it's ugly, but look how he builds it into the driving, building rhythm of these lines. Maybe you or I can't make it beautiful, but Whitman did:
And, finally, Whitman includes in this poem a notion that I love, the idea of sufficiency. We talk a lot these days about abundance, but Whitman doesn't so much. He likes to say that something will "prove sufficient." He simultaneously makes you extravagant promises--he sings the songs of the glory of none sooner than he sings the songs of the glory of you, after all--and reminds you of the imperfect body and world you live in: your unsteady eye, your drunkenness, your greed, your deform'd attitude, your premature death, all of these are mentioned in the poem as well.
But listen to the closing lines of the poem:
That's my Walt. "The means are provided, nothing is scanted." I find those to be about the most comforting words I've ever read.
I wonder how many hours in total I spent as a teenager declaiming this poem in the solitude of my room. I know that for a long time I had it memorized, too, and it is a great poem for reading, or reciting, aloud. It has a thundering rhythm. I remember reading a book that talked about Whitman being influenced by the cadences of the preachers of the Second Great Awakening, and this is surely an exhortation. I think you could deliver this poem as a sermon, punctuating your words with the book in your hand, like a preacher with a Bible.
I don't believe I've said anything about Whitman I haven't said before, and some of you have certainly heard me say it. I don't suppose I should expect to be original at three in the morning when what I really want is to be sleeping. But this is all something I like to revisit from time to time. I've been reading these poems for over 30 years now, and while a poem like "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" is in some ways a trifle, "To You" has never let me down yet.
I do various things with my hour. Sometimes I read a book, if I've got one going, or watch a little TV. Or check my e-mail and write long notes to friends. But tonight, I'm thinking about Walt Whitman, which I'm sure is how many insomniacs spend their nights.
Specifically, I'm thinking about Walt Whitman, and me as a high school freshman reading him for the first time in American Literature. The Whitman poems we read in class--and we're talking about 1979, here, so my memory may be faulty--were the most schoolroom-ish of his poems. We read "O Captain, My Captain," probably because it was short and it rhymed and it had no sex in it. But it's a terrible introduction to Whitman, a weak example of his work and not at all typical. I'm sure we read When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed. And we read, I seem to remember, Starting from Paumanok, though looking at it again that seems unlikely, what with "sexual organs and acts" there in line 178. It was either "Starting from Paumanok," or one of the other boring ones.
Anyway, it wasn't a very auspicious introduction, yet somehow I fell in love. I think part of why I fell in love was my American Literature teacher, whom I did not, overall, care for, because he was dismissive of me, and he looked at my breasts a lot, and his idea of a final exam in literature was to have us memorize 100 titles and publication dates. But I seem to remember him reading aloud from Whitman in class, and reading well, and reading with passion. And I remember a poem I hadn't liked on the page becoming more alluring when I heard him read it.
Anyway, I bought a copy of Leaves of Grass at the bookstore in the mall.
I tell you, of all the things I've ever gotten rid of in my life, that first copy of Leaves of Grass is one of two I regret. It was just a cheap Signet edition, and I carried it around with me from 1979 until just a few years ago, so it was spine-broken and the pages were starting to come unglued. I had marked the poems I liked with paper clips, and they rusted and left marks. It was in terrible shape, and it made sense to let it go and get a nicer copy. But I shouldn't have done it.
Anyway, those paper clips would be an interesting glimpse into my teenage psyche. I was intimidated by the longer poems; they were just incomprehensible to me. But I loved, for instance, "I Saw In Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing," and I memorized it so well that I believe I can recite it to this day. It's short enough to just give it to you right here:
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
I loved this poem for what it said about friendship, which of course was the most important thing in my life at 14 and 15 and 16. I liked it because I imagined Whitman saw that tree while taking a long solitary ramble, which was something I also did a lot of. I liked the sound of "rude, unbending, lusty." It was one of the first poems I ever read that seemed to me to be speaking my own thoughts.
Another little fragment I adored--and memorized, which was easy because it's only about 3 lines, was this:
O you, whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near you, or remain in the same room with you,
Little know you the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
I believe that, more than once, as a young lesbian, I slipped a woman a note with this poem written in it as an act of seduction.
But the poem I loved best as a teenager and young adult is a longer poem called "To You," which distinguishes it not at all from a number of Whitman's poems that start in exactly that same way. Here it is.
By God, I loved that poem, and I still do. As a teenager, I felt that Whitman was speaking right to me, in all my adolescent insecurity, and his voice was tremendously reassuring:
There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you;
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
Nobody but Whitman was saying things like that to me, God knows. I loved its tallying of my gifts, its promises for the future.
But I also loved the egalitarianism of the poem:
Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light;
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light;
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.
It took me awhile, as a teenager, to parse that image, but once I got it, I loved it. Whitman was saying: Everybody gets a halo.
I loved Whitman's commitment to the male and the female in this poem. His relationship to the female is pretty complicated, and not always what we might wish it to be, but look at him here! I have spent my life listening to people say we can't use "he and she" in writing because it's ugly, but look how he builds it into the driving, building rhythm of these lines. Maybe you or I can't make it beautiful, but Whitman did:
Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they;
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.
And, finally, Whitman includes in this poem a notion that I love, the idea of sufficiency. We talk a lot these days about abundance, but Whitman doesn't so much. He likes to say that something will "prove sufficient." He simultaneously makes you extravagant promises--he sings the songs of the glory of none sooner than he sings the songs of the glory of you, after all--and reminds you of the imperfect body and world you live in: your unsteady eye, your drunkenness, your greed, your deform'd attitude, your premature death, all of these are mentioned in the poem as well.
But listen to the closing lines of the poem:
The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency;
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself;
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.
That's my Walt. "The means are provided, nothing is scanted." I find those to be about the most comforting words I've ever read.
I wonder how many hours in total I spent as a teenager declaiming this poem in the solitude of my room. I know that for a long time I had it memorized, too, and it is a great poem for reading, or reciting, aloud. It has a thundering rhythm. I remember reading a book that talked about Whitman being influenced by the cadences of the preachers of the Second Great Awakening, and this is surely an exhortation. I think you could deliver this poem as a sermon, punctuating your words with the book in your hand, like a preacher with a Bible.
I don't believe I've said anything about Whitman I haven't said before, and some of you have certainly heard me say it. I don't suppose I should expect to be original at three in the morning when what I really want is to be sleeping. But this is all something I like to revisit from time to time. I've been reading these poems for over 30 years now, and while a poem like "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" is in some ways a trifle, "To You" has never let me down yet.