Back to school

Holiday is over, today is the first day back to school. My teacher friends all posted on Facebook at 6 a.m., like a last virtual grasp at freedom as they fortified themselves both against the cold outside and the ubiquitous high energy class waiting for them at school.

I do much of my best thinking while driving.  In fact I have extensive conversations with myself while driving to and from work or even shuttling the kids to and fro.  I used to be concerned other drivers would observe me chatting to no one and think I was a little bit off, but now every one is talking on their cell phones so I just use that as cover.  The last few days I have been conversing with myself about this little blog project of mine.  What am I trying to accomplish?  Should I have just limited myself to one topic in order to build a more streamlined sense to the blog?  In the end I have settled on the following as a means of explaining my little challenge: words matter. What we say and how we say it matters.  I tell my students, especially those uncomfortable with writing that writing is a craft that you have to practice.  But really it is more than that--words, whether expressing beauty, critique, or commentary, to name but a few, convey what makes us human. So I have concluded in my self-talk, self-help sessions that I am undertaking this project because I need to make my words matter more, at least to me. Why do words matter to you?

A short story, part I

Even though she knew he was coming to dinner, her breath still caught in her throat when he walked through her kitchen door.  Her intern had admitted to her a few days ago that his father was a "little bit famous."  "I just wanted to ya know sort of warn you since you invited us over for dinner when he visits and well sometimes people get a little goofy about it," George had said while looking down at a line he kept tracing in the floor with his foot.  Katherine smiled and asked whether his father was a right-wing radio host with a penchant for sensationalism and to her relief (you never know!) George sputtered while saying, "oh my God no."  "So," said Katherine, "I imagine we'll be just fine.  Dinner is at eight, I have your favorite fake meat burger and the rest of us will enjoy steak and salmon on the grill."  And that was the end of it.  Katherine wondered briefly around 7:00, as she set out some hummus and opened some wine, what "a little bit famous" meant. As the first of her students and their parents arrived, she was busy assuring proud moms and dads that their offspring really were every bit as spectacular as they themselves had always suspected.  This was the best part of her job and it pushed any thoughts of Brad Pitt arriving, out of her mind. But then George stepped shyly into the kitchen followed by his father. And Katherine realized what George had meant.

TBC

Revelations rather than resolutions

I keep a small notebook in my purse.  I write little notes to myself, grocery lists, to do lists and often any variety of resolution type lists.  Flipping back through the notebook is a bit like looking back in time--where I was and where I thought I was going.  The thing is, I having been going--or at least trying to go--the same direction for too long.  And the reality is I just don't think I have ever really arrived.

For the last 10 years, I have been trying to, in no particular order:  get healthy, get organized, be more involved in my community and, since I have had kids, spend more quality time with my children.  This year I am not making resolutions. I am working towards revelations... what is it that allows me to accomplish or not accomplish what I set out as goals?

So here is the first one: I am not type A or detail-oriented.  Sometimes I have been described as such, and the fact that I am a researcher gives this illusion.  But in reality my best thinking is very global and vision oriented.  The thing is, I really need some type A in my life.  I need some structure, even in small ways like labels on the outside of my drawers proclaiming their content, in order to function.  It is almost as if the fact that my brain seems to like big vision thinking means it needs lots of help just to get through the day.  And when I am really honest with myself, which after all is the point of looking for revelation, I am just a little lazy.  The bit of structure really just needs a smidgen of time, to sit down and plan.  Why am I lazy though?  What drives this aversion to following routine, planning schedules, pre-packing my bag at night?  This part I am not sure about...more thinking for further revelation needed.

There are no shortage of people, websites, products or devices promising to help you reach your goals, be more organized or, more basically, find structure.  The National Association of Professional Organizers, which I imagine to be so filled with type A people that they actually annoy themselves at meetings, has declared January to be "get organized" month and has a pretty nifty blog with tips and tricks: http://napogetorganized.com/2014/01/01/2014-is-here-and-its-time-to-go/.   A search of the app store for "Organization" yields a mind boggling number of apps.  I found one that I find somewhat useful in trying to set broad daily goals like "take my vitamins".  It works by creating a red light vs. green light dashboard for any habits you are trying to either acquire or break.  This appeals to my desire for some structure, but does not offend my free thinking ways.  But in the end all of this is really just a means to back to making resolutions.  It seems to me that if you really want to revolutionize who you are, whether by working out more, eating better, spending more time together as a family or being more engaged at work then all of this requires you to first discover why? Why do this and why aren't you doing this now?  Sure this path is probably long and it is uncertain in its process, but maybe understanding yourself is worth it.

260 Days of Writing

I wear a lot of hats.  I am a mama. I am a scholar. Sure. But I am also a wife, teacher, sister, friend, daughter, administrator, small business owner, a person who mends fences, a person who wants to be an advocate, a person who brings other people together, a person trying to find health and stay healthy. Somewhere in all of that, I am also a woman who wakes up every day with 24 hours to be alive. Lately, I have been feeling a lot like I don't cherish those 24 hours enough--appreciating them gets lost in all the hat changing. But I find that I make sense of the different moments and different roles with words. I look for stories, write them in my mind, compose narrative to the day.

In the book, and I think the film, Julie and Julia, the protagonist Julie talks about setting out to cook her way through Julia Child's classic cookbook, as a need to be a part of something more fulfilling. For me, I find I am at a point in my life where I need something to channel all the fulfillment around me.  So I am setting up this challenge for myself: 260 days of writing.  I will write something every weekday for the year of 2014. The writing may be of any genre, length, or style.  It may be good, but I am sure it will often be very very bad.

The topics will likely be things near and dear to my heart, education, diversity, motherhood, politics, academia, cooking, the art of trying to see how skinny people live.  If anyone ever reads this blog and gives me a prompt or a genre, I will write on demand, or at least do my best to do so.  Besides simply posting some piece of writing every day, the only other rule is that the piece must convey meaning. And that in fact is what I think I am trying to do, find a way to make the meaning all around me explicit--to bring forth and give words to the hours, the minutes--the moments--that my jumbled life brings. So it is a personal journey, for sure.  But if anyone would like to join me, that would be groovy too.

Stay tuned...