A few good gems

Here are some interesting things we gathered up from the nether regions of the internet for some good reading this weekend:

Painting by  Ellen Thesleff. I love this. Is she singing? Calling her kids in from a hike? Found via Pinterest.

• May I just pause here and give thanks for the gentle reminder that Pinterest gives me when I try to pin something I've already pinned and saved? (For instance, this painting, above.) I must be reaching my Pinterest (and brain) saturation point because it happens more often than I'd like to admit. Next I'd like them to have a little pop-up window that asks skeptically "are you really thinking about doing/making/baking this one? Really?"

• The essay "Our Soft Stomach, Our Broad Back: Notes to My Mother" illustrates the ways mothers can influence daughters on issues of body image and weight as a young woman celebrates her mother for what her body does and can do. A sampling:  "I noticed things during those summers, but not what you suspected. I never thought twice about your soft stomach or short waist or any of the other grievances I sometimes caught you muttering about in front of the mirror or with friends. I noticed the way your strong, freckled arms flexed when you weeded the front lawn, and the way your shapely legs sliced through the water when you started taking swimming lessons in the shallow end of the town pool." 
  

• The decline and fall of the English major. (Gulp. Say it ain't so! English majors are my people, my tribe. Sadly, we might be an endangered species.)

• Every once in a while my computer desktop needs some sprucing up. I just reorganized the mess of files and folders this week and treated myself to a new desktop image to celebrate. The Desktop Wallpaper Project has a lot of fun options; my favorite right now is this motivating one by Dave Foster.

• Speaking of motivating, I thought this advice from Karen Cheng (found via Explore) hit the mark: "Yo-Yo Ma's first instrument wasn't cello. He actually started with violin--and he wasn't good at it. So he quite violin and picked up the cello instead. Maybe you're like Yo-Yo Ma, and you just haven't found your cello yet." 

On grief and villages

I am approximately 44 million miles away from where I want to be today. I would actually rather be on a couch in Idaho, sitting with my arm around the shoulders of my dear friend who just lost her husband yesterday to stupid, greedy pancreatic cancer. I would love to go honor our friendship in person and pay tribute to Tony's life well lived, the door opened and closed far too soon. 

Admittedly I was in that frame of mind when today I stumbled across a remarkable article about a Cincinnati school engaged in supporting and embracing a group of grieving teen boys. (Well, not stumbled, exactly. I found it via Longreads, which is such a great website and service, have you heard of it? They compile the best of longer articles published in magazines and online each week.)  I think that The Rules of Grieving: They Are Still Boys should be a must-read for social work students. Or, come to think of it, for any parent/neighbor/teacher/friend/human.

photo by Carrie Cochran via Cincinnati.com

The article underlines the truth of the old adage "it takes a village to raise a child." For a while there the notion that it takes a village was diminished and appropriated for cheap political dithering. But, the fact is, it really does take a host of people to raise a child. Between the ages of 10 and 20 I think this is especially true. Teachers. Advisors. Friends and their parents. A collective of other supportive adults, nudging, applauding, and pointing the way to adulthood.

Count them throughout the article: the women who start the bereavement group. The anonymous parent who insists on making chocolate chip cookies for the group meetings. The teachers who come in, willing to show their vulnerability and share their own experiences, like this one:

photo by Carrie Cochran via Cincinnati.com

"On this day, math teacher James Jewell sits at the table. Buckley and Munafo-Kanoza invite teachers to the group meetings to show the students that adults have grief to work through as well. They do it for another reason, too: It is a good reminder to the teachers that some kids might seem like they are having a hard day because, in fact, they are having a hard day.

Mr. Jewell is holding a pair of binoculars. He tells the students that he grew up with seven sisters, so he and his father were close. When he was about 13 or so, he would go trapping with his father to sell the skins for money. “We grew up rural,” he says to the astounded boys.

One morning, Mr. Jewell tells the group, his father mentioned, casually, how he wished he had a good pair of binoculars. So the boy saved his money from the skins, right up to the dime, and one day bought the best pair of binoculars at the local hunting shop. The store owner, Mr. Jewell remembered, offered to pay the tax on the binoculars since the boy didn’t know such a thing even existed.

Mr. Jewell’s father died when he was 19, and now he sat before the boys, in his 60s, telling the story, holding the binoculars, tears running down his checks. “These bring back a lot of fond memories for me,” he said. “I’m crying now, but these are really good memories.”

The boys sit mesmerized. An adult — a teacher, no less — sharing a story they could be telling themselves. And he remains so affected by the death of his father, who has been gone for so long. For the students sitting around the table, it feels like proof that what they are going through is real."

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Here's to the village, yours and mine. We are each, after all, both recipients and contributors to it. As my mom used to say as she gathered up a meal to bring to someone who needed it, "it's just what we do for each other."

And I'll add this postscript today: I'm so glad to have been in that village with you, Tony. Thank you for blessing our family, literally and figuratively. We love you, friend.

The rescue notebook

These tween/teen years can be tricky parenting geography, especially with the oldest child (also fondly known as the beta child. Or the first pancake?). How much permission to grant, what are the kids ready for (and what are you ready for?), how to balance freedom & protection?  

I was the oldest child myself--my husband was, too--and yet it was still really tough for us to gauge how to pace the unfurling of responsibilities and privileges for Lauren. I'm pretty sure she always felt we were frustratingly, agonizingly slow and out of sync and that she needed to yank on the rope for a bit more slack now and then. (And we probably were. We were young and new at this! She was our baby! There's no map involved in this whole enterprise.) In the meantime, we clashed quite a bit, Lauren and I.

Woven map notebook photo  via (& tutorial) here

So here's an idea we tried: When Lauren was around 10 or 11, we started a notebook conversation between the two of us. At the time we were in a rut: I seemed to be finding much more negative than positive things to say to her (and of course now I can't remember the issues or why they seemed so important to me...) and she was getting moodier in that hint-of-adolescence way. Our discussions didn't lead to broadening our understanding...more often (sadly) they shut it down. I had a bunch of blank notebooks so one day I grabbed one, wrote her a note in it, and left it under her pillow. And then she wrote back. 

We could say anything or ask anything. We pledged not to correct or critique, and (my personal commitment to myself as the purported adult in this whole thing) I tried to say positive things each time.  

And we kept it confidential, of course. I won't quote our exchanges here but I'm sure you can imagine them. Sometimes she just asked what a word meant, embarrassed to ask face-to-face. Sometimes I simply praised her efforts at trying something new. Other times we passionately defended our points of view or begged for understanding. Or forgiveness.  Man, I love that notebook.

For a good stretch of time there it was a crucial thing for our relationship. Now and then I would get it back out again if we got stuck back in the pattern of frustration and clogged up communication. We both sound better in writing at those times. Friendlier. More compassionate and calm.  

As a bonus, we have a terrific chronicle of our relationship during some rugged terrain. I look back and realize how ridiculous my expectations were at times. Lighten up, Annie, I remind myself. Most often, though, a look through the notebook increases my compassion for us both and reveals what I've hoped all along: we've both been doing the best we know how to do. 

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The scales of our belonging

Last week after I wrote about my Erikson epiphany, Kristine left a fantastic quote in the comments that has been on my mind ever since. It addresses that same idea that Erikson captured: that parenting is a transformative experience and, as our kids start growing up and we have time and space to look around a bit more, we're increasingly primed for generativity, creativity, and giving back to the world more widely.

Since you might have missed the quote, imbedded as it is in the comments, I wanted to pass it along (edited a bit for brevity; see the whole quote here in the comments):​

​A Mother and Child with its Head in her Lap, Pieter de Hooch

"As mothers, as fathers, we have at our disposal a wonderful time of rehearsal. We may set aside our interests time and again; we may practice watching the interests of others. But if that sacrificial love starts with our children, and stops there, we will have lost our opportunity to fulfill Christ's commandment, and so have everything that He has promised. Christ's commandment is that we love, not just our children, but one another!

​"...This is the best news of all, because, mothers and fathers, when our time has come, when, having fulfilled the duties of our state of life we are free to address ourselves to the needs of the world, when it comes time to love one another as Jesus loved us, we already know how! We have already learned! How to teach, how to feed, how to tend, how to heal, how to care, how to love. But it is different with us this time, because we act not out of duty. This time, in addition to knowing how to love, we also know why.​

"...Having practiced our scales, played the daily exercises of love for our children, the scales of our belonging, now we come to the concerto. Now the music begins. Having loved our own, we now can love the world. Now we rise to the task for which parenting prepared us...because although we lost ourselves in our mothering, God remembered us, and brought us forward, and made us new."​

- Reverend Canon Susan Harriss, Mother's Day sermon

It's a reminder I needed--that, in all the mundane and profound daily sacrifices that parenthood requires, we also launch ourselves.​

Erikson, epiphanies, and me

​Taking It All In by Karen Offutt

I was making the bed today when I started thinking about Erik Erikson. I'm not sure what it was about the mundane act of fluffing wrinkled pillows and tucking sheets that made my thoughts alight on him in particular but there he was, in my mind on a Monday morning. 

Maybe it was because it is Memorial Day back in the US. I thought of the many family members making their pilgrimages, with flowers in their arms and memories in their hearts, to stone tablets marking the lives and legacies of loved ones.​  

Erikson, bless his theory-making heart, is one of my top-three developmental psychology gurus. He thought about development as a lifelong proposition, with stages progressing fully into old age. Each stage has a conflict that influences biological, social, and individual psychological development. The successful resolution of each conflict--which must be done before moving on to the next stage--leads to a resulting virtue. Each builds on the one before it. Just as a quick runthrough (that will thoroughly cheat his theory of its deserved explanation), the stages look like this:​

• Birth-1 year: Trust vs. mistrust. Leads to hope.​
• 2-3 years: Autonomy vs. shame & doubt. Leads to will.
• 3-5 years: Intiative vs. guilt. Leads to purpose.
• ​6-12 years: Industry vs. inferiority. Leads to competence.
• ​13-18 years: Identity vs. role confusion. Leads to fidelity.
• 18-40 years: Intimacy vs. isolation. Leads to love (and partner/family formation).
• 40-65 years: Generativity vs. stagnation. Leads to care (giving back)
• ​65 years and older: Ego integrity vs. despair. Leads to wisdom.

I think I might be the poster child for that seventh stage right now! (Never mind how gut-dropping is it that I am now in the seventh of eight life stages! Zoinks. Oh, and we will tackle his teen identity stage another day, I promise.)  I think "generativity" could also be replaced with "creativity." If you are anywhere near that age range, maybe you can relate, too? 

This stage, says Erikson, is all about a new, dawning awareness and need to make an impact in the world, to understand the bigger picture, and use our own voices.  It's all about creating a community, a legacy beyond stone memorials, and giving back. It's the pull to keep learning and not stagnate.  It's why I returned to grad school, I think, and why I leapt into this blog project. It's why, in the middle of a rather scary series of mammograms a couple of years ago (it turned out fine, whew) I thought "but I haven't written my book yet." Oh, Erik. Spot on, sir.

This clip of an interview with the always inspiring Maira Kalman goes along with this sentiment/stage perfectly (found via Brain Pickings):

"It's love and it's work. What else could there possibly be?...What is the most wonderful thing I could be doing and who are the most wonderful people I could be with?"

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How does your life compare with Erikson's stages? Are you aware of the drive for generativity/creativity? What kinds of things are you planning for the life-after-children years? Are they the same or different from what you're doing now?​

A few good gems

While I'm relieved the weekend is upon us, we are all itching for summer to officially begin. We've got kids up late, kids working, kids swimming, and they STILL have to wake up early for school. Stop the madness! ​

Just thought I'd throw in a shout-out to Steel Magnolias. When the boyfriend came to visit we indoctrinated him into the SMC (Steel Magnolias Club). Jordan reports that NONE of her college friends had seen the movie, which I feel is a downright tragedy and indicative of the failing state of our cultural values. Recently, the movie was taken off of Netflix. Don't worry, my letter-writing campaign has already begun.​ So, go. Watch Steel Magnolias. It's chock-full of one-liners and makes me cry like a baby every time. "Laughter though tears is my favorite emotion."

And a few other gems:​

• ​I've seen this abridged version of David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address circulating in a few spots this week, but it deserves repeating. I'm always up for some wise life advice.
• I'm making this for Madison's grad party. Just waiting on the fabric to arrive.​
• I'm also considering these awesome embroidery hoops to hang above the table. Although I might hang mine facing down. ​
• I was drawn to this quote by Jeanette Winterson because my girls are facing so much change right now. On another note, Jeanette Winterson is an interesting writer who doesn't get a lot of press in the US. She falls under my specialty of 20th Century British Writers, so I've read her for work . . . but also read her for fun. She's a win/win.​
• It's getting hot in Houston. I'm excited to try some new summer recipes, like this one.​
• For you bibliophiles, check out this archive to The New York Times Writers on Writing. I love hearing about how writers work, what their process is. I read about their fabulous work ethics . . . then I go watch another episode of The West Wing. It's not working for me.​

That's it folks. Have a fabulous weekend!​

Leaving notes

​Every once in a while, I come across an idea that makes me wish I could go back and start parenting all over again. (Like those wonderful yearly photos of your children in the same spot? Or monthly in the same shirt? I missed the boat on that 19 years ago. Sigh.) An archived article in Esopus Magazine had me wishing for a parenting time machine. According to the website, "exhibition designer Robert Guest has been getting up at dawn every school day for the past 15 years to write a note to each of his two children, Joanna and Theo. Included in Esopus 10 is a sampling of the thousands of letters written by Guest and collected by his wife, Gloria, from lunchboxes and laundry piles." Here's the text from one of them (above left):

"The world Joanna--you can't imagine how beautiful it really is. Think of the different places--tropical islands, snow-capped mountains, deserts of sand, miles and miles of green fields. It's awesome! Think of the kinds of weather--bitter cold - blinding sun - stormy wind and rain - cool breezes - warm winds. It's awesome! Think of the people in the world --black & brown, yellow and red, and white - old, young and babies of each. It's awesome! And just think. You get to be here in the middle of it all. So what do you do? You smile, you say "thanks" and you live! Love, Dad"

What I love about these is that they aren't just about his love for the children (which of course is important) but it's also about sharing his thoughts and perspectives about the world and life. (In a similar vein, this week Maria Popova shared poignant notes of motherly wisdom from notable mothers on her site Brain Pickings.)

Luckily, it's not too late for us to write something, even if it's not the fantastic, letter-a-day idea. Maybe a yearly birthday letter for starters. Or a well-placed post-it every Monday morning. Or a weekly letter mailed to your college student (or grandkids!). Or a running journal, just for that child, to be given at some future date. Just start where you are and go from there. Still, there's something magnificent to admire in the consistency and longevity of 15 years of daily letters.

In an age of wireless, intangible, in-the-cloud technology, I think writing it down--on paper, in handwriting--has power and longevity, more than the earnest lectures on responsibility (or does that just seem to be my go-to lecture?) or any shiny new gadget. Those tucked messages to our kids eventually nestle in pockets and fists and musty shoeboxes carried from home to apartment and home again to be pulled out, uncreased, and remembered, long outlasting their author. I know because I have a box of them myself. Treasures (or tray-sures, as they say in my hometown).