I spent many years living in a small town in the middle of a midwestern state when I was in my 20s and early 30s. I expected to hate it. I grew up near a major city in the mid-atlantic region and even though we rarely spent time downtown, it was always an option. And because we were near a city, we got all the benefits of city spill-over (lots of good movie options, plenty of restaurants, great shopping, easy public transportation). I grew up thinking that everyone had these things. Oh how wrong I was.
In fact, I loved living both in the midwest and in a small town. There was a strong sense of community there, perhaps because we all had nothing else to do but hang with each other. I felt like my friends were actively part of my life--I saw a friend or two (or three) every single day, either at my house or at a local coffee shop or in the grocery store. It's true that there was nothing to do. We had one movie theater with three (maybe four?) screens, we had one Tar.get that was updated to a Super Tar.get right before I left, and we had very few international restaurant options: one Indian restaurant, one sushi place, and a couple of Chinese take-out places, largely because it was a college town. I could walk everywhere and there was a sweet little downtown that had antique stores, brewpubs and bars, a bookstore, a thrift shop, coffee shops, a wonderful public library, and a river to stroll along in the afternoons.
There was something very empowering about living in such close proximity to other people, too. That period of my life was the most politically active one to date. I cared about my town, my community, and my fellow midwesterners. When a tornado warning sounded, I climbed into my bathtub with my cat knowing that everyone else was doing the same. We were all connected, somehow.
It was also cheap. I mean really cheap. I rented a huge Victorian house, alone, for $325/month. Two bedrooms, huge kitchen, big dining room, great living room with a beautiful fireplace, two bathrooms, a front porch, and a backyard. How was that even possible? Answer: it was small town America where prices were low and there weren't very many bad landlords out to get as much cash as possible.
I may be romanticizing it all now that I live back in the same metro area where I grew up. Its true that there were other factors making that period of my life so lovely. I was in grad school, and that fosters immediate community. Of course I had many friends around me at all times--we were all taking classes together, we were all in the same kind of emotional and intellectual cauldron, and we were all bored, to some extent. We needed to have parties to fill up the long hours between tornado sirens and dissertation writing.
I wouldn't go back to a small midwestern town again. It feels like that part of my life has ended. But I wish there were elements of that life that I could have now. So perhaps the best option for me would be another small town, this time in the northeast or mid-atlantic region, that was no more than an hour away from a major city so that I had options and urban life spill-over. Technically, this is what I live in now, but the little town I'm in does NOT have a clear identity. It's more like suburban sprawl. There is no sense of community, really, and no real town center. We can't walk anywhere. When my car is in the shop and I'm not at work, I'm stranded at home--there is literally nowhere to go.
I would love to be more adventurous and to have said that I'd like to live in Costa Rica or Rio DeJaneiro or Paris. I'm not that person, though. I'm sort of a homebody, someone who likes having a little nest and a place to call my own. I DO have that, at least. My nest is mine and it looks like me, it contains my loved ones, and it's where I can relax. In the end, that's really all I need.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Gotta start somewhere
I decided to try NaBloPoMo for November. Am I crazy? Apparently. I almost a non-existent blogger as it is and now I'm going to try blogging every day for a month?
For my first post, I'm sticking (loosely) to the prompt: What is a favorite quotation and why?
This is not my favorite quotation--I can't even imagine choosing one quotation and naming it favorite--but it's a quotation from a poem I love, and I've read it multiple times in the last few days because I'll be teaching it this afternoon in my undergraduate class on women in literature. It's from Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," which is a poem that I read to be about a woman who is diving into the ocean to see a wreck, a ruined piece of history. Instead of mythologizing that wreck or spending too much time imagining what happened to bring the ship down, or telling stories about the relics that remain on the ocean floor, she wants to see the wreck as it is:
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
What I'll explain to my students is that this poem is, perhaps, about how Rich wants us to see beyond stories, especially stories that have left women behind and off the page, obscuring their contributions to famous "wrecks" in history and achievement. Rich wants us to envision ourselves (women, in particular) as explorers, not as people formed by old arguments and ideas, but as people outside the old system. Starting fresh, more or less, not without history but without hangups about history.
Or, as Margaret Atwood said about Rich's poem, "The wreck she is diving into...is the wreck of obsolete myths, particularly myths about men and women. She is journeying to something that is already in the past, in order to discover for herself the reality behind the myth, 'the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth.' What she finds is part treasure and part corpse, and she also finds that she herself is part of it, a 'half-destroyed instrument.'"
When I'm reading it today, I'm not paying much attention to the existing story that says that this poem is a vital work from the second wave feminist movement. That it's about hacking away at old myths of men and women.
Instead, I'm gravitating toward the diver's desire to see things as they are. To strip away emotion and myth and to really SEE the damage, the "threadbare beauty," and the wreck itself. To appreciate a thing for what it is rather than what we say about it. To stop telling stories and to just be. Without mythologizing or providing a running narrative of what should be or what might become.
I feel like I'm often telling stories about myself, not in the sense of lying or of pretending to be someone I'm not. I hope that at the ripe old age of 43, I'm not doing that in a public way anymore. I used to play fast and loose with the truth when I was young. When I was a teenager, in fact, I spent a year or so telling my friends that I was dating John Stamos and that he and I went on secret dates in his limo, hiding from the press (which is why they couldn't meet him or know more about the relationships). I was so terribly ashamed of being relatively poor and uninteresting that I invented a life I thought would work to make me into a person worthy of friendship and love. It never crossed my mind that they wouldn't believe me. Or worse, I found that some friends played along. Maybe they were deluded, too (I think this was the case with one friend, someone who had invented a life of her own and perhaps somehow understood my desperation). Or, as is most likely, they didn't want to hurt my feelings by suggesting that I was lying. I wasn't who I said I was at all. Eventually John Stamos and I broke up--I was sad for weeks about it--and I returned somewhat to more petty lies about my home life and who I really was.
But today, I live more as I am. I wear less makeup than I did in earlier parts of my life so that I look like my real self and not a socially-acceptable creation. I say what I mean and I think before I speak, both of which make me feel more true to myself than not. I give my attention more fully than ever before, by which I mean that when I am with a friend or my kids or even myself, I am mostly there, in the moment. I'm not daydreaming about what I'm doing later; I'm present and am soaking in as much of the interaction as possible.
Being just Rachael is easier than dating a fictional 1980s-era John Stamos. It's closer to being with the wreck, to being the diver seeing the ribs of the disaster and the threadbare beauty of the boat's contents.
I wonder, though, how to apply this concept throughout my life and not just in a few hard-earned places. In my relationship, for instance, I fall back on old myths and stories about who we are and how our marriage is plagued by seemingly insurmountable problems. I see him as he has been, not as a person who he is right now, someone who is also trying (I think) to make things better, even if he's going about it in a different way than I am. I don't always (ever?) see him for him. I see him as I believe him to be.
In my academic writing, I berate myself for being a terrible scholar. I tell myself, in that mumbling interior voice, that I have no new ideas, that I never really did, and that I should settle for being just a teacher because that's what I'm good at. The worst version of this story goes like this: Rachael, you're really good at asking provocative questions of other people and at nodding your head and making supportive noises at the right time, but you're not really very smart at all. You're pretending to be smart--and you're totally getting away with it--but there's no real intellect behind that pretense. It's a good thing you're a good actor in the classroom. This is a terrible story to tell oneself. Why cannot I not give myself credit when it's due? Why do I persist in seeing the myth of my academic self and not the actual flawed but fully interesting scholar and teacher that I probably am?
. . . .
Just got back from teaching. I don't know if I was just "off" today or if they were genuinely unmoved by this poem, but I had a really hard time getting discussion going about this Rich poem. Sigh. It wasn't a total wash--one student came up at the end of class and told me that she'll be writing a response paper about it because even though she didn't get it when she first read it, now she thinks she has something worthwhile to say. That's a bit of success, right? I'll take it.
For my first post, I'm sticking (loosely) to the prompt: What is a favorite quotation and why?
This is not my favorite quotation--I can't even imagine choosing one quotation and naming it favorite--but it's a quotation from a poem I love, and I've read it multiple times in the last few days because I'll be teaching it this afternoon in my undergraduate class on women in literature. It's from Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," which is a poem that I read to be about a woman who is diving into the ocean to see a wreck, a ruined piece of history. Instead of mythologizing that wreck or spending too much time imagining what happened to bring the ship down, or telling stories about the relics that remain on the ocean floor, she wants to see the wreck as it is:
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
What I'll explain to my students is that this poem is, perhaps, about how Rich wants us to see beyond stories, especially stories that have left women behind and off the page, obscuring their contributions to famous "wrecks" in history and achievement. Rich wants us to envision ourselves (women, in particular) as explorers, not as people formed by old arguments and ideas, but as people outside the old system. Starting fresh, more or less, not without history but without hangups about history.
Or, as Margaret Atwood said about Rich's poem, "The wreck she is diving into...is the wreck of obsolete myths, particularly myths about men and women. She is journeying to something that is already in the past, in order to discover for herself the reality behind the myth, 'the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth.' What she finds is part treasure and part corpse, and she also finds that she herself is part of it, a 'half-destroyed instrument.'"
When I'm reading it today, I'm not paying much attention to the existing story that says that this poem is a vital work from the second wave feminist movement. That it's about hacking away at old myths of men and women.
Instead, I'm gravitating toward the diver's desire to see things as they are. To strip away emotion and myth and to really SEE the damage, the "threadbare beauty," and the wreck itself. To appreciate a thing for what it is rather than what we say about it. To stop telling stories and to just be. Without mythologizing or providing a running narrative of what should be or what might become.
I feel like I'm often telling stories about myself, not in the sense of lying or of pretending to be someone I'm not. I hope that at the ripe old age of 43, I'm not doing that in a public way anymore. I used to play fast and loose with the truth when I was young. When I was a teenager, in fact, I spent a year or so telling my friends that I was dating John Stamos and that he and I went on secret dates in his limo, hiding from the press (which is why they couldn't meet him or know more about the relationships). I was so terribly ashamed of being relatively poor and uninteresting that I invented a life I thought would work to make me into a person worthy of friendship and love. It never crossed my mind that they wouldn't believe me. Or worse, I found that some friends played along. Maybe they were deluded, too (I think this was the case with one friend, someone who had invented a life of her own and perhaps somehow understood my desperation). Or, as is most likely, they didn't want to hurt my feelings by suggesting that I was lying. I wasn't who I said I was at all. Eventually John Stamos and I broke up--I was sad for weeks about it--and I returned somewhat to more petty lies about my home life and who I really was.
But today, I live more as I am. I wear less makeup than I did in earlier parts of my life so that I look like my real self and not a socially-acceptable creation. I say what I mean and I think before I speak, both of which make me feel more true to myself than not. I give my attention more fully than ever before, by which I mean that when I am with a friend or my kids or even myself, I am mostly there, in the moment. I'm not daydreaming about what I'm doing later; I'm present and am soaking in as much of the interaction as possible.
Being just Rachael is easier than dating a fictional 1980s-era John Stamos. It's closer to being with the wreck, to being the diver seeing the ribs of the disaster and the threadbare beauty of the boat's contents.
I wonder, though, how to apply this concept throughout my life and not just in a few hard-earned places. In my relationship, for instance, I fall back on old myths and stories about who we are and how our marriage is plagued by seemingly insurmountable problems. I see him as he has been, not as a person who he is right now, someone who is also trying (I think) to make things better, even if he's going about it in a different way than I am. I don't always (ever?) see him for him. I see him as I believe him to be.
In my academic writing, I berate myself for being a terrible scholar. I tell myself, in that mumbling interior voice, that I have no new ideas, that I never really did, and that I should settle for being just a teacher because that's what I'm good at. The worst version of this story goes like this: Rachael, you're really good at asking provocative questions of other people and at nodding your head and making supportive noises at the right time, but you're not really very smart at all. You're pretending to be smart--and you're totally getting away with it--but there's no real intellect behind that pretense. It's a good thing you're a good actor in the classroom. This is a terrible story to tell oneself. Why cannot I not give myself credit when it's due? Why do I persist in seeing the myth of my academic self and not the actual flawed but fully interesting scholar and teacher that I probably am?
. . . .
Just got back from teaching. I don't know if I was just "off" today or if they were genuinely unmoved by this poem, but I had a really hard time getting discussion going about this Rich poem. Sigh. It wasn't a total wash--one student came up at the end of class and told me that she'll be writing a response paper about it because even though she didn't get it when she first read it, now she thinks she has something worthwhile to say. That's a bit of success, right? I'll take it.
Friday, October 26, 2012
where I am (October 2012 edition)
Oh, it's been forever. I've been swamped at work and at home, trying to juggle too much (I know I'm not alone in this--feel free to nod in agreement!). I read off and on, though, and am thrilled about Mo and Will's new baby news. Such a long-awaited miracle and such sweet chubby cheeks in that newborn photo!
It's lifting a bit and I look forward to getting caught up on everyone's lives, so expect a few comments here and there as I do, even if they're on old posts. Some of you post so quickly I can't keep up in real time. I admire that ability to post on a regular basis.
I hate to do it, but I think bullet points might be a good catch-up technique for today, and then I'll try to expand on these bullets over the next few weeks. I really need to write out what's going on, just for my own sanity and self-preservation.
- The kids, W and E, are fine. E is 13 months (how the f did that happen?) and she's toddling all over the place. Fell down the stairs this morning, however, perhaps to remind me that she's not as competent as she sometimes looks (she's fine--she rolled down the carpeted stairs, cried, and then demanded a piece of cinnamon raisin bagel as though nothing happened, though I told daycare to watch her and call me if she seemed in any way different than her usual self).
- W, who is nearing 3, seems to have moved mostly out of a fairly defiant and difficult stage that hit around 2.5. Everything suddenly had to be done his way and by him. Predictable, I'm sure, but so hard to live with. A little sweet-faced tyrant. He still demands that I not sing in the car or talk to him when he's busy, but I can live with it because he's mostly returned to himself. I expect that we'll go through more at 3.5 (which I hear is far harder than 2.5). G*d help us all.
- My relationship with my husband is still rough. Rough, rough, rough. I know it's weird to switch from lovely updates about babies to miserable sadness about my relationship, but this is what it is. This is how it feels. We go from smiling at each other when the kids do something adorbs to ignoring each other so that we won't exchange sharp words in front of them. Well, this is what I do. He is not quite as good about it and doesn't see the problem (apparently) with having tense exchanges in front of them (perhaps even while holding or feeding at the dinner table). So not my style. I'd prefer to keep the kids away from our tension. This seems to all stem from the difference in our families--mine was silent and sometimes tense (not often), while his is chaotic, loud, and rather shout-y. I'm unfamiliar with that dynamic. And in fact, I'm quite uncomfortable with that dynamic.
- I'm not sure how to proceed, then, in this relationship with a partner who I believe loves me but who is somehow not really equipped or able to be the kind of partner I want. And to be fair, I suppose I'm not what he wants. I suspect he wants a stay-at-home perfect house kind of partner who cooks his dinners and does his laundry. As you know, I'm not that person and do not aspire to be. This is an old record, playing yet again (I'm sure I could link back to several posts where I've said this exact same thing). I want to remove the record player altogether, but I can only do that if he's on board. Sadly, he's not. When I suggest that we need to restructure our expectations (both of us!), he starts telling me that if I just kept the house a little cleaner, everything would be okay. So yeah, there's no restructuring of expectations on his part.
- I think I'm really angry and sad about this relationship thing. I have a right to be, I know. I hate that I'm even writing about it, in fact, because it makes me sad to admit that this is still going on. What the hell?
- Work moves along fine. I'm having a great teaching semester. Not that I'm necessarily blowing their socks off every class period, but it feels rewarding most of the time and I feel like I'm giving them their money's worth, which is satisfying. And next year, I'm teaching two graduate classes, one in the spring and one in the fall, which is pretty damn lucky for someone who is not on the tenure track. I'll have to write more about it...I feel lucky. I think I've earned it all, don't get me wrong. But lucky nonetheless.
- Insomnia. Weird. I usually sleep well, but perhaps all the stress of homelife is what's disrupting my sleep. It's too bad. Sleep was always a refuge where I could let myself be.
- Oh, body image. Why do you hound me? I joined a gym (one of those $10/month no frills kind of chain gyms). I've actually done a little bit of running, going super slow in order to protect my wonky knees. It feels good. I only get there three times a week or so, but I love it. I can't seem to exercise outside, but get me into a gym and I feel motivated.
- I'm not yet back on my ADD meds. I mentioned that I used to take them, right? Back before TTC for W (aka 2008). I've missed them every day since, and now that I'm not breastfeeding or pregnant, I want to go back on. But my thyroid meds had to be adjusted and I've had some odd heart palpitations (a story for another day....they seem to be benign), and until that's all sorted out, the dr. wisely has said no to meds. So I wait. I suspect they'll help me feel more like myself again, too. Might not help the insomnia, dammit.
- Yes, weaning. We did it, finally. The cabbage leaves seemed to have worked. Right around the time that I stuffed cabbage leaves into the bra and used a few icepacks, the girls stopped being so full and milk seems to have finally dried up. It all took longer than I had expected and I'm sadder this time than I was with W. Also, the girls seem to be very different than after weaning last time. They're really soft and mushy where they used to be firm. It seems they've become what I had feared. I'm mostly okay with it, but I do sometimes feel wistful for their firmer, bouncier selves. They just feel so textureless. Strange. Same size as before babies, though, so that's good.
I will definitely write more about most of these things, but getting them all off my (sad soft) chest feels better. I look forward to catching up and being back in this space a bit more--I miss it when blog reading (and occasional writing) is not part of my life.
It's lifting a bit and I look forward to getting caught up on everyone's lives, so expect a few comments here and there as I do, even if they're on old posts. Some of you post so quickly I can't keep up in real time. I admire that ability to post on a regular basis.
I hate to do it, but I think bullet points might be a good catch-up technique for today, and then I'll try to expand on these bullets over the next few weeks. I really need to write out what's going on, just for my own sanity and self-preservation.
- The kids, W and E, are fine. E is 13 months (how the f did that happen?) and she's toddling all over the place. Fell down the stairs this morning, however, perhaps to remind me that she's not as competent as she sometimes looks (she's fine--she rolled down the carpeted stairs, cried, and then demanded a piece of cinnamon raisin bagel as though nothing happened, though I told daycare to watch her and call me if she seemed in any way different than her usual self).
- W, who is nearing 3, seems to have moved mostly out of a fairly defiant and difficult stage that hit around 2.5. Everything suddenly had to be done his way and by him. Predictable, I'm sure, but so hard to live with. A little sweet-faced tyrant. He still demands that I not sing in the car or talk to him when he's busy, but I can live with it because he's mostly returned to himself. I expect that we'll go through more at 3.5 (which I hear is far harder than 2.5). G*d help us all.
- My relationship with my husband is still rough. Rough, rough, rough. I know it's weird to switch from lovely updates about babies to miserable sadness about my relationship, but this is what it is. This is how it feels. We go from smiling at each other when the kids do something adorbs to ignoring each other so that we won't exchange sharp words in front of them. Well, this is what I do. He is not quite as good about it and doesn't see the problem (apparently) with having tense exchanges in front of them (perhaps even while holding or feeding at the dinner table). So not my style. I'd prefer to keep the kids away from our tension. This seems to all stem from the difference in our families--mine was silent and sometimes tense (not often), while his is chaotic, loud, and rather shout-y. I'm unfamiliar with that dynamic. And in fact, I'm quite uncomfortable with that dynamic.
- I'm not sure how to proceed, then, in this relationship with a partner who I believe loves me but who is somehow not really equipped or able to be the kind of partner I want. And to be fair, I suppose I'm not what he wants. I suspect he wants a stay-at-home perfect house kind of partner who cooks his dinners and does his laundry. As you know, I'm not that person and do not aspire to be. This is an old record, playing yet again (I'm sure I could link back to several posts where I've said this exact same thing). I want to remove the record player altogether, but I can only do that if he's on board. Sadly, he's not. When I suggest that we need to restructure our expectations (both of us!), he starts telling me that if I just kept the house a little cleaner, everything would be okay. So yeah, there's no restructuring of expectations on his part.
- I think I'm really angry and sad about this relationship thing. I have a right to be, I know. I hate that I'm even writing about it, in fact, because it makes me sad to admit that this is still going on. What the hell?
- Work moves along fine. I'm having a great teaching semester. Not that I'm necessarily blowing their socks off every class period, but it feels rewarding most of the time and I feel like I'm giving them their money's worth, which is satisfying. And next year, I'm teaching two graduate classes, one in the spring and one in the fall, which is pretty damn lucky for someone who is not on the tenure track. I'll have to write more about it...I feel lucky. I think I've earned it all, don't get me wrong. But lucky nonetheless.
- Insomnia. Weird. I usually sleep well, but perhaps all the stress of homelife is what's disrupting my sleep. It's too bad. Sleep was always a refuge where I could let myself be.
- Oh, body image. Why do you hound me? I joined a gym (one of those $10/month no frills kind of chain gyms). I've actually done a little bit of running, going super slow in order to protect my wonky knees. It feels good. I only get there three times a week or so, but I love it. I can't seem to exercise outside, but get me into a gym and I feel motivated.
- I'm not yet back on my ADD meds. I mentioned that I used to take them, right? Back before TTC for W (aka 2008). I've missed them every day since, and now that I'm not breastfeeding or pregnant, I want to go back on. But my thyroid meds had to be adjusted and I've had some odd heart palpitations (a story for another day....they seem to be benign), and until that's all sorted out, the dr. wisely has said no to meds. So I wait. I suspect they'll help me feel more like myself again, too. Might not help the insomnia, dammit.
- Yes, weaning. We did it, finally. The cabbage leaves seemed to have worked. Right around the time that I stuffed cabbage leaves into the bra and used a few icepacks, the girls stopped being so full and milk seems to have finally dried up. It all took longer than I had expected and I'm sadder this time than I was with W. Also, the girls seem to be very different than after weaning last time. They're really soft and mushy where they used to be firm. It seems they've become what I had feared. I'm mostly okay with it, but I do sometimes feel wistful for their firmer, bouncier selves. They just feel so textureless. Strange. Same size as before babies, though, so that's good.
I will definitely write more about most of these things, but getting them all off my (sad soft) chest feels better. I look forward to catching up and being back in this space a bit more--I miss it when blog reading (and occasional writing) is not part of my life.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Be the Match
Are you a bone marrow donor? Please consider joining at Be The Match. It takes no time at all--they send you a swab and you get some cells off the sides of your cheeks and mail it back. Then, if you're matched with someone who is in desperate need for bone marrow, they'll call you and you go through the process of donating. Donation will mean the difference between life and death. My mother has been registered as a bone marrow donor for as long as I can remember (back when the only way to register was to go through a donation process!) and she's never been called up, but stands ready. As of a few months ago, I, too, stand ready and will be thrilled to donate if needed. BTW, I don't work for Be the Match or have any stake in the issue other than compassion.
I bring up bone marrow donation because the family at reproducing genius is experiencing a potential diagnosis of a rare form of leukemia in their beautiful three year old son. Please go there, donate some money via paypal if you can, and sign up for Be The Match. One never knows if their son will need bone marrow donation or not, but it cannot hurt to have as many people signed up as possible. Please offer support in whatever way you can. I've been an occasional reader there over the years, but because I have an almost three year old boy and a connection to the academic world, I feel immediately called to send out the word, hoping that someone would do the same for me if I were in that situation.
Life is so unpredictable. It often seems that horrible things happen all the time, especially when we are part of the ALI community in any way. We are privy to each others' moments of pain on a regular basis. But beautiful things happen too--all the freaking time--and we have to band together and send beauty and love and hope and money and bone marrow and whatever we have (--everything we have--) to anyone who is going through a time of need. Please join me in doing so.
I bring up bone marrow donation because the family at reproducing genius is experiencing a potential diagnosis of a rare form of leukemia in their beautiful three year old son. Please go there, donate some money via paypal if you can, and sign up for Be The Match. One never knows if their son will need bone marrow donation or not, but it cannot hurt to have as many people signed up as possible. Please offer support in whatever way you can. I've been an occasional reader there over the years, but because I have an almost three year old boy and a connection to the academic world, I feel immediately called to send out the word, hoping that someone would do the same for me if I were in that situation.
Life is so unpredictable. It often seems that horrible things happen all the time, especially when we are part of the ALI community in any way. We are privy to each others' moments of pain on a regular basis. But beautiful things happen too--all the freaking time--and we have to band together and send beauty and love and hope and money and bone marrow and whatever we have (--everything we have--) to anyone who is going through a time of need. Please join me in doing so.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
the long process of weaning
Last night, I slept with cabbage leaves in my bra. A true sign of desperation!
How did I get to cabbage leaves? Well, I've been thinking about weaning for a while. I started the breastfeeding journey with E with small goals. 2 weeks. 2 months. 3 months. Hey, maybe we'll make it to 6 months! And ultimately, I hoped to make it close to a year like I did with her big brother W. Around 9 months, she started to be much less interested in nursing than in food. It became a challenge to get her to latch on long enough to bring on let-down. I skirted mastitis twice during months 9 and 10 because of plugged ducts. I got shoddy about my pumping at work, abandoning it altogether at some point because my output was so low and I didn't feel engorged during the day. Even worse, she started chomping down on me with her four little teeth, especially during those middle of the night feedings where we were both half asleep. Around 10 months, I decided I had enough.
If you've read any of my previous entries, you know that I'm generally pro-breastfeeding but am also very supportive of formula feeding--my philosophy is that babies need food and love, and the kind of food doesn't really matter. That said, I've been feeling some anxiety about not making it closer to a year. You know how it is. A philosophy for others is one thing, but a philosophy applied to ME? Different. I think I've worked through that anxiety for the most part. Remembering those little teeth biting me is helping!
So our last breastfeeding session was a middle of the nighter about 10 days ago. I felt a pang of sadness and then a bit of relief to know that this would be it. She barely took anything and seems mostly to have adjusted. There were a few days where she'd kiss my chest or bury her head in my clothed breasts, but I took this as a signal that she was hungry and that she could use extra cuddling, both of which I provided right away. Now, she seems to be okay with the sippy cups of formula and on her end of things, all seems to be well. In fact, she has started sleeping through the night after almost 11 months of at least one wake-up (often two or three). It took a few days of my husband going in and cuddling/rocking her to sleep, but she almost magically stopped waking all on her own.
The weird part--the part that leads to cabbage leaves--is that I seem to still be making milk, and in fact, am again skirting plugged ducts and mastitis. I actually got up and pumped briefly last night because I was certain that if I didn't, the blockage might get worse. Do cabbage leaves really work? I'll let you know. So far, they just seem soggy and smelly and weird.
One of the hard parts of this transition is that my baby girl seems suddenly closer to toddlerhood than babyhood. I'm not great with the baby phase, but seeing it end is still very sad. I loved breastfeeding, especially in those early months where it's just you, the baby, and the endless cuddle. I don't plan on having any more babies, so in all likelihood, I'll never snuggle a baby to the breast again and just writing that makes my eyes well up.
But it's time. It's time for me to go back on medication that helps me control my anxiety. It's time to enjoy being with baby E more than when I was wincing in pain from being bitten or when I had to force her on. I sometimes wish I was the kind of mother who was all extended-breastfeeding-is-for-me. And again, I support whatever works for other people. Most of my friends are extended bfers and I think it's awesome.
For now, I'm reeking of soggy cabbage and hoping that this new phase of milk production winds itself down soon. I'll keep you posted!
How did I get to cabbage leaves? Well, I've been thinking about weaning for a while. I started the breastfeeding journey with E with small goals. 2 weeks. 2 months. 3 months. Hey, maybe we'll make it to 6 months! And ultimately, I hoped to make it close to a year like I did with her big brother W. Around 9 months, she started to be much less interested in nursing than in food. It became a challenge to get her to latch on long enough to bring on let-down. I skirted mastitis twice during months 9 and 10 because of plugged ducts. I got shoddy about my pumping at work, abandoning it altogether at some point because my output was so low and I didn't feel engorged during the day. Even worse, she started chomping down on me with her four little teeth, especially during those middle of the night feedings where we were both half asleep. Around 10 months, I decided I had enough.
If you've read any of my previous entries, you know that I'm generally pro-breastfeeding but am also very supportive of formula feeding--my philosophy is that babies need food and love, and the kind of food doesn't really matter. That said, I've been feeling some anxiety about not making it closer to a year. You know how it is. A philosophy for others is one thing, but a philosophy applied to ME? Different. I think I've worked through that anxiety for the most part. Remembering those little teeth biting me is helping!
So our last breastfeeding session was a middle of the nighter about 10 days ago. I felt a pang of sadness and then a bit of relief to know that this would be it. She barely took anything and seems mostly to have adjusted. There were a few days where she'd kiss my chest or bury her head in my clothed breasts, but I took this as a signal that she was hungry and that she could use extra cuddling, both of which I provided right away. Now, she seems to be okay with the sippy cups of formula and on her end of things, all seems to be well. In fact, she has started sleeping through the night after almost 11 months of at least one wake-up (often two or three). It took a few days of my husband going in and cuddling/rocking her to sleep, but she almost magically stopped waking all on her own.
The weird part--the part that leads to cabbage leaves--is that I seem to still be making milk, and in fact, am again skirting plugged ducts and mastitis. I actually got up and pumped briefly last night because I was certain that if I didn't, the blockage might get worse. Do cabbage leaves really work? I'll let you know. So far, they just seem soggy and smelly and weird.
One of the hard parts of this transition is that my baby girl seems suddenly closer to toddlerhood than babyhood. I'm not great with the baby phase, but seeing it end is still very sad. I loved breastfeeding, especially in those early months where it's just you, the baby, and the endless cuddle. I don't plan on having any more babies, so in all likelihood, I'll never snuggle a baby to the breast again and just writing that makes my eyes well up.
But it's time. It's time for me to go back on medication that helps me control my anxiety. It's time to enjoy being with baby E more than when I was wincing in pain from being bitten or when I had to force her on. I sometimes wish I was the kind of mother who was all extended-breastfeeding-is-for-me. And again, I support whatever works for other people. Most of my friends are extended bfers and I think it's awesome.
For now, I'm reeking of soggy cabbage and hoping that this new phase of milk production winds itself down soon. I'll keep you posted!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
a rough spot
I haven't written much because I'm in a rough spot. I'm having a completely mixed summer. The kids are my joy and give me the happiest of moments. I have a few posts in the works about who they are, what they're up to. I have plenty of things to say about them, but I'm not in the mood to write those things today.
Today, and for the last few weeks, I've been worrying over the rough spot I'm in. What's happening is that my relationship with my husband is completely on the rocks, and not in an interesting or casual way. We're not having a fight. We're not clashing over an issue that we'll finally resolve with a hug and a kiss. Instead, we're silent. Angry. Furious. Most of the time. How did this happen? When did this happen? What the hell shifted and left us here?
I feel very tender. Like a big part of my life is an open wound that I return to again and again, unsure of what to do to make it feel better. Worrying that it will never feel better and it will always be open and sore. We have good days and bad days, and I just don't see how we'll get out of this rut. I miss him and yet I feel nervous when we have long periods of time together because these days, the silence is crushing.
Even worse, the summer is ending and the fall semester begins in a few weeks. He's a high school teacher, so he'll be returning to school and I'm a college professor and will be doing the same. Our lives will suddenly get much more complicated and stressful than they are now, juggling too little money, too much responsibility, two full time jobs, two little kids who are in part time daycare (yes, seriously, I do my full time job in far fewer than the hours needed to do it well because we can't afford to put them in full time care...it's hard and stressful and I really wish we had the money for full time care). How will we handle all this given that we're in the rough spot now, during the relaxed summer season?
I know this post sucks. It's not telling you anything specific about my life and it's not ending on a happy note (like: we had a fight but we worked it out and all is fine!). It's just messy. But this is where I am today.
One last thing to mention. I really want to stop breastfeeding baby E because I want to go back on medication to help me manage all this anxiety. But adorable baby E has no interest in weaning. So on top of the messiness of my relationship, I have this sweet girl who practically crawls inside my shirt when she's hungry, and I can't deny her because it's so wonderful that it makes me smile just thinking about it. How do you wean an 11 month old baby who doesn't want to wean? I guess the answer is that I don't. I'm going to keep going for a little while longer. Hopefully I can just keep managing the anxiety until then. Breastfeeding is so complicated! And even though I want to quit bfing, I'm also heartbroken at the thought of doing so--I envy women who can breastfeed until the baby becomes a toddler, and yet I know I'm not one of those women.
Maybe this is all part of a bigger question: What kind of woman am I? What is my relationship to my husband, my kids, my job? It feels like I return to this question again and again in my writing, and perhaps that's where I should spend some time meditating. Perhaps if I figured out my own self, my own needs more fully, I'd be able to be less caught in the (often ordinary) chaos of life? Perhaps the rough spots would feel a little less rough?
p.s. The answer of taking an SSRI compatible with breastfeeding is not possible because I've had negative reactions to SSRIs in the past. I've spoken to my doctor and therapist about it. I just have to wait until bfing is over to take meds. But this is not to pass judgment on someone who takes an SSRI and bfs. It's just a personal thing for my body's chemistry.
Today, and for the last few weeks, I've been worrying over the rough spot I'm in. What's happening is that my relationship with my husband is completely on the rocks, and not in an interesting or casual way. We're not having a fight. We're not clashing over an issue that we'll finally resolve with a hug and a kiss. Instead, we're silent. Angry. Furious. Most of the time. How did this happen? When did this happen? What the hell shifted and left us here?
I feel very tender. Like a big part of my life is an open wound that I return to again and again, unsure of what to do to make it feel better. Worrying that it will never feel better and it will always be open and sore. We have good days and bad days, and I just don't see how we'll get out of this rut. I miss him and yet I feel nervous when we have long periods of time together because these days, the silence is crushing.
Even worse, the summer is ending and the fall semester begins in a few weeks. He's a high school teacher, so he'll be returning to school and I'm a college professor and will be doing the same. Our lives will suddenly get much more complicated and stressful than they are now, juggling too little money, too much responsibility, two full time jobs, two little kids who are in part time daycare (yes, seriously, I do my full time job in far fewer than the hours needed to do it well because we can't afford to put them in full time care...it's hard and stressful and I really wish we had the money for full time care). How will we handle all this given that we're in the rough spot now, during the relaxed summer season?
I know this post sucks. It's not telling you anything specific about my life and it's not ending on a happy note (like: we had a fight but we worked it out and all is fine!). It's just messy. But this is where I am today.
One last thing to mention. I really want to stop breastfeeding baby E because I want to go back on medication to help me manage all this anxiety. But adorable baby E has no interest in weaning. So on top of the messiness of my relationship, I have this sweet girl who practically crawls inside my shirt when she's hungry, and I can't deny her because it's so wonderful that it makes me smile just thinking about it. How do you wean an 11 month old baby who doesn't want to wean? I guess the answer is that I don't. I'm going to keep going for a little while longer. Hopefully I can just keep managing the anxiety until then. Breastfeeding is so complicated! And even though I want to quit bfing, I'm also heartbroken at the thought of doing so--I envy women who can breastfeed until the baby becomes a toddler, and yet I know I'm not one of those women.
Maybe this is all part of a bigger question: What kind of woman am I? What is my relationship to my husband, my kids, my job? It feels like I return to this question again and again in my writing, and perhaps that's where I should spend some time meditating. Perhaps if I figured out my own self, my own needs more fully, I'd be able to be less caught in the (often ordinary) chaos of life? Perhaps the rough spots would feel a little less rough?
p.s. The answer of taking an SSRI compatible with breastfeeding is not possible because I've had negative reactions to SSRIs in the past. I've spoken to my doctor and therapist about it. I just have to wait until bfing is over to take meds. But this is not to pass judgment on someone who takes an SSRI and bfs. It's just a personal thing for my body's chemistry.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
advice to a 32 year old woman
I mentored a graduate student this past semester, which meant that we sat in my office for an hour every week to talk about teaching. I gave her advice on how to handle problem students, we shared ideas for generating class participation, and we compared notes about how to comment on paper drafts. At times, we talked about the sorry state of the profession and the limited job prospects of a new Ph.D. in English, and as we grew comfortable with each other, we chatted warmly about our lives outside of the university. She is young(ish), about 10 years younger than I, and after a few months of this, she began to feel like a friend, not a student. I genuinely enjoyed her company and am sad that the mentoring relationship has ended (which it has because she's not teaching next semester and I probably won't see her very often given our very different schedules).
In one of our last meetings, she jumped right into a discussion that I didn't anticipate by asking, "How is it to have children and be a professor of English?" Huh. Well, I said, it's pretty great. My schedule is flexible and I can make time to take them to pediatrician appointments, the zoo, and have a relaxed daycare protocol in which neither child is in full time (W goes to daycare four days a week, and E goes three). It's pretty ideal, in other words, and even though I sometimes feel like I have more work on my plate than I'd like, it's work I can complete on my own time.
What she was really driving at, though, was a deeper, more painful, question, which she asked as the conversation continued. At 32, she explained, she was in a new relationship, in the third year of a Ph.D. program, and was starting to worry that between the graduate program, the awful job market for new Ph.D.s in our field, and her fledgling relationship, she might not find a way to have kids before her fertility ran out. How important was it, she asked, to get her degree finished and her career started before having children? What advice might I have for someone in her situation? Should she even continue seeking the Ph.D. and instead, should she prioritize kids and family by getting a regular full time job and finding something a little more stable?
Whoo boy. I joked that we really needed to be having this kind of conversation over cocktails. I told her that I wouldn't dare to really give advice--every person's life is different. Every path is unique. And each of us must figure out our own paths pretty much on our own. I can't tell her what to do. I've often wished for a mentor who would take away my many options and would simply tell me what to do to be most successful in whatever I was worrying about at the moment. But that kind of mentor doesn't exist and we should mostly be thankful for her absence. It really is best to own our decisions and choices, and being told what to do takes away that power.
But, I offered, it seemed very wise that she was puzzling over these choices now and not waiting until the clock is ticking so loudly. And at 32, her time is probably not up, though one never knows. I am all too aware of women in their 20s who have fertility issues, so it's never enough to assume that age is the only/best factor to consider.
I said that it seemed to me that the Ph.D. is, indeed, not a clear means to a career. If she knows this and still wants to continue, even if it means going into debt, go for it. I did, and while I hate the debt (oh, you have no idea!), I don't regret the graduate school experience or the fact that I'm in a relatively great job as a result of it, even though it's not on the tenure-track. I would mostly do it all over again, though I'd take out fewer loans and I'd have focused on a slightly different field than the one I did, which has turned out to be the most saturated field in the profession. Ugh.
I also suggested that she think about these issues separately, rather than all in one big mess, because it might be easier to sort out her feelings about these issues one on one. So figure out whether the Ph.D. is really important. Once you know that, you'll be able to think about the baby question and the relationship question more clearly.
As for the baby question, I relayed what I have heard from other academic women, which is that there is no "good" time for a woman in academia to have a baby. If you have a baby in graduate school, you get accused of not being serious about your work. If you have a baby in the first five or seven years of your career, you get accused of not being serious about your career. If you have a baby after you've been established, seven years or more into the career, you get accused of not being a good colleague and of being not serious about the profession. See? It sucks all around. So the advice: have a baby when you damn well want to have it or when modern medicine suggests that you do, not when it makes sense in the academic career.
As for the relationship part, I had no real advice, as that's something she's got to play out on her own. They just started dating, though they've been friends for years, and she said they both know they want to have kids. One part of my brain was screaming: get moving! Do it now! Don't wait because it's possible that your fertility or his fertility is compromised. Go, go go! The other part of my brain, the more rational one, was saying that the two of them will hopefully reach a time when it seems right to them to start trying, but I did throw in a few caveats about how hard it is after 35, etc. I reminded her that men aren't always aware of how fertility works, so she should certainly broach this subject with her boyfriend when she felt like the relationship was headed in a committed direction.
How'd I do? It sounds here like I gave her lots of "advice," but really, I hope what I did was to relate my story, share some stories of others I knew, and reinforce that she was doing an excellent job of thinking these things through in a responsible way. My ultimate advice was to take these big decisions in 6-month increments. Think a bit and then revisit decisions/thoughts again in six months (and six months later, and so on). Don't make any rash decisions yet about the Ph.D. or the relationship or babies. But don't dally, either. And in the meantime, I said: live your life. Enjoy today and tomorrow and the next without spending too much time worrying about what's around the corner. Be smart, be diligent in thinking through your choices, but then live. We never know how long we have on this earth, and so it's worthwhile to savor it in all its uncertainty and messiness.
I wish someone had told me all this when I was 32, though I was a very different kind of 32. At 32, I had just finished my doctorate and had gotten my first non-tenure-track job at a SLAC in the northeast. I was full of hope for my career, and that memory makes me smile ruefully. How little I understood at 32! And babies were not anywhere on my radar, really. I thought I might want to have them, but I assumed the "right" guy was around the corner. As soon as he arrived, we'd get started on all that. Well, the "right" guy didn't show up until I was 35 and he didn't want kids at all when we began our relationship. I wouldn't have had this kind of mature conversation at 32.
What would you have said to this promising young person if she was in your profession? Or if you met someone like this in your travels and she had similar concerns? How much do we offer to people we don't know well about fertility, motherhood, and the complications of being a woman? Surely men don't have these kind of conversations, do they?
In one of our last meetings, she jumped right into a discussion that I didn't anticipate by asking, "How is it to have children and be a professor of English?" Huh. Well, I said, it's pretty great. My schedule is flexible and I can make time to take them to pediatrician appointments, the zoo, and have a relaxed daycare protocol in which neither child is in full time (W goes to daycare four days a week, and E goes three). It's pretty ideal, in other words, and even though I sometimes feel like I have more work on my plate than I'd like, it's work I can complete on my own time.
What she was really driving at, though, was a deeper, more painful, question, which she asked as the conversation continued. At 32, she explained, she was in a new relationship, in the third year of a Ph.D. program, and was starting to worry that between the graduate program, the awful job market for new Ph.D.s in our field, and her fledgling relationship, she might not find a way to have kids before her fertility ran out. How important was it, she asked, to get her degree finished and her career started before having children? What advice might I have for someone in her situation? Should she even continue seeking the Ph.D. and instead, should she prioritize kids and family by getting a regular full time job and finding something a little more stable?
Whoo boy. I joked that we really needed to be having this kind of conversation over cocktails. I told her that I wouldn't dare to really give advice--every person's life is different. Every path is unique. And each of us must figure out our own paths pretty much on our own. I can't tell her what to do. I've often wished for a mentor who would take away my many options and would simply tell me what to do to be most successful in whatever I was worrying about at the moment. But that kind of mentor doesn't exist and we should mostly be thankful for her absence. It really is best to own our decisions and choices, and being told what to do takes away that power.
But, I offered, it seemed very wise that she was puzzling over these choices now and not waiting until the clock is ticking so loudly. And at 32, her time is probably not up, though one never knows. I am all too aware of women in their 20s who have fertility issues, so it's never enough to assume that age is the only/best factor to consider.
I said that it seemed to me that the Ph.D. is, indeed, not a clear means to a career. If she knows this and still wants to continue, even if it means going into debt, go for it. I did, and while I hate the debt (oh, you have no idea!), I don't regret the graduate school experience or the fact that I'm in a relatively great job as a result of it, even though it's not on the tenure-track. I would mostly do it all over again, though I'd take out fewer loans and I'd have focused on a slightly different field than the one I did, which has turned out to be the most saturated field in the profession. Ugh.
I also suggested that she think about these issues separately, rather than all in one big mess, because it might be easier to sort out her feelings about these issues one on one. So figure out whether the Ph.D. is really important. Once you know that, you'll be able to think about the baby question and the relationship question more clearly.
As for the baby question, I relayed what I have heard from other academic women, which is that there is no "good" time for a woman in academia to have a baby. If you have a baby in graduate school, you get accused of not being serious about your work. If you have a baby in the first five or seven years of your career, you get accused of not being serious about your career. If you have a baby after you've been established, seven years or more into the career, you get accused of not being a good colleague and of being not serious about the profession. See? It sucks all around. So the advice: have a baby when you damn well want to have it or when modern medicine suggests that you do, not when it makes sense in the academic career.
As for the relationship part, I had no real advice, as that's something she's got to play out on her own. They just started dating, though they've been friends for years, and she said they both know they want to have kids. One part of my brain was screaming: get moving! Do it now! Don't wait because it's possible that your fertility or his fertility is compromised. Go, go go! The other part of my brain, the more rational one, was saying that the two of them will hopefully reach a time when it seems right to them to start trying, but I did throw in a few caveats about how hard it is after 35, etc. I reminded her that men aren't always aware of how fertility works, so she should certainly broach this subject with her boyfriend when she felt like the relationship was headed in a committed direction.
How'd I do? It sounds here like I gave her lots of "advice," but really, I hope what I did was to relate my story, share some stories of others I knew, and reinforce that she was doing an excellent job of thinking these things through in a responsible way. My ultimate advice was to take these big decisions in 6-month increments. Think a bit and then revisit decisions/thoughts again in six months (and six months later, and so on). Don't make any rash decisions yet about the Ph.D. or the relationship or babies. But don't dally, either. And in the meantime, I said: live your life. Enjoy today and tomorrow and the next without spending too much time worrying about what's around the corner. Be smart, be diligent in thinking through your choices, but then live. We never know how long we have on this earth, and so it's worthwhile to savor it in all its uncertainty and messiness.
I wish someone had told me all this when I was 32, though I was a very different kind of 32. At 32, I had just finished my doctorate and had gotten my first non-tenure-track job at a SLAC in the northeast. I was full of hope for my career, and that memory makes me smile ruefully. How little I understood at 32! And babies were not anywhere on my radar, really. I thought I might want to have them, but I assumed the "right" guy was around the corner. As soon as he arrived, we'd get started on all that. Well, the "right" guy didn't show up until I was 35 and he didn't want kids at all when we began our relationship. I wouldn't have had this kind of mature conversation at 32.
What would you have said to this promising young person if she was in your profession? Or if you met someone like this in your travels and she had similar concerns? How much do we offer to people we don't know well about fertility, motherhood, and the complications of being a woman? Surely men don't have these kind of conversations, do they?
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