No Glory Days, but Plenty of Pop Songs: an Academic Celebrates Community

Going to conferences can be the perfect antidote for the day-to-day work of an academic.  I usually have mixed feelings of “Yay!  I get to go learn stuff and hang out with like-minded people” simultaneously with “I am soooo not ready for my presentation.  Do I have to do this?”  My friend Susan captured this perfectly.  The night before I left, I discovered that the luncheon I was to attend was 90 minutes earlier than I thought, which wrecked my plans for a leisurely, post-rush hour trip up 95.  Then, I looked at the convention program for the first time (I know, I know) and found out that my presentation was supposed to be on the article for which I won an award, not the new research I had just spent two weeks preparing for.  Oops.  When I told Susan these stories, she said, “When these things happen, don’t you wish you didn’t have to go, even if it’s something you looked forward to?” 

I understood what she meant, because I had had those exact same feelings at other times.  Nels and I almost didn’t take a trip to Puerto Rico, even though it was planned and paid for, because we had just been traveling to see family.  We did end up going, which was great.  For this trip to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference, even with the last-minute problems, I still was excited to go.  Not to get the award, or talk about my research, but because I would be spending time with friends, old and new. 

The Buddhists call the assembly of ordained monks and nuns a “sangha.”  Yogis use the term more loosely, in that groups of students who practice together, say, at the same studio, might be called a sangha.  I like to think of it even more broadly, in that I feel like I’m a member of multiple sanghas—runners, yogis, writers, academics, Hoosiers.  Each of these sanghas have their own discourses and ways of being—their own social worlds. 

At NCTE, I was able to spend time with two different sanghas who differed in space and time.  One of my current sanghas is the Agentive Teachers’ Group, or ATG.  We are a coalition of teachers interested in social justice pedagogy and all that goes with it.  Our presentation was in the late afternoon on Friday, and we had a full house.  By staying away from the “talking heads” kind of presentation, we were able to engage in dialogue with the participants and learned as much from them as they did from us.  Although this group has existed for four to five years (none of us can remember, which I take as a good sign), I was gratified and humbled by how they talked about their work.  Afterward, at dinner, we didn’t talk about the presentation at all, beyond the initial “Wow, did you know Tom Romano was in our session?”  Instead, we talked about music, books, movies, and television shows, including arguments about what should be on the Top 10 Pop Song list of all time (a sampling of songs under discussion:  “Billie Jean,” “The Final Countdown,” “Heard It through the Grapevine”, along with newer stuff I didn’t recognize.  Hoosiers, rest assured I put in a vote for Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” and these East Coast folks agreed).    Sure, there was also beef regarding whether Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” was crap or not.  What else can you expect from a bunch of English teachers? 

Then, instead of staying at the conference hotel, I stayed with two dear friends in Newton.  They are both educators, so of course we talked shop, but the topics ranged from politics to football to the benefits of vitamin D to contentment.  This is a different, more intimate sangha, and is just as important in sustaining my sense of connection and well-being.

Going to conferences is not just about current and local sanghas, though. It’s mostly about sanghas of the past.  If you have gotten your doctorate or been partnered with someone who has, (to this latter group, we owe you) then you know that graduate school sanghas, like professional sanghas, help you keep and retain your sanity.  Unless you’re in grad school, nobody really gets what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.  Even the language is different.  Meeting up with Beth, John, and Tasha was about reconnecting to a place and time that shaped who I am as a person and an educator.  I would not have made it through statistics without John’s patient tutelage and Tasha’s fierce commitment (I have called her Tenacious T ever since).  Beth and John were key members of the English Teachers Collaborative (ETC), the ancestor group of the current ATG.  Tasha, who is exactly five days older than me, and I share an Aquarian vibe that is both airy and fiery.  We haven’t seen each other in years, but it didn’t seem like it, as conversation flowed just as naturally about our current concerns and lives as it did ten years ago. 

Interestingly, conversations with my past sangha members were not about what we experienced together in grad school.  There was no, as Bruce Springsteen puts it, Sitting back/trying to recapture/a little of/glory days.  Instead, we talked about where we are now, who we are now, and what is going on in our field.  The mileage between the physical and social spaces of Michigan, South Carolina, Virginia, and Rhode Island may be far, but the connections we forged through a doc program that managed to be both demanding and supportive are still intellectually and socially stimulating. 

It is a shame that academic institutions are committing less funding for conference travel.   The benefits of attending these yearly conventions are not limited to going to sessions or even presenting.  Instead, I would argue that the main value comes from creating and sustaining relationships.  Relationships drive and sustain all professions, and I’m not talking about networking, which is purely strategic.  I’m talking about authentic dialogue that comes from genuine interest in and support for others, not what benefits the individual only.   So this Thanksgiving week, raise a toast or turkey leg to your own sanghas, whether they are family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, or members of a specialized group.  

What Billy Squier Taught Me about Integrity

Integrity.  The first time I remember thinking about this word was due to Billy Squier. 

For those of you who had the misfortune to be born post-80’s or outside the U.S., you may not know about the magic of somebody like Squier.  If I was a musical snob, I would completely disown that I ever liked this guy, but hey, I’m married to a guy who is unashamed of loving Dan Fogelberg, whom, to me, is the nadir of rock.  (“Leader of the Band”?  Seriously?  HATE that song). 

As I listen to videos via not-very-good YouTube videos, Squier’s songs still sound as tempting and revealing as they did back in the mid-80’s, when Don’t Say No was one of the biggest records around.  “The Stroke” was most popular, but to my ears, “Lonely is the Night” and “My Kinda Lover” sound as sincere as rock and roll possibly could in the 80’s.

I liked Billy Squier enough to want to go see him at the Fort Wayne Memorial Coliseum during my junior year of high school.  The only problem was the concert was on a school night, and thus my parents said no.  Not to be thwarted, I made up a story about how my friend Kim and I were going to a tech rehearsal for the school play, that I would stay overnight with her, and go to school from her house the next day.  Somehow, my parents bought it.

Interestingly, I remember nothing about that concert.  What I do remember is being caught a week later when my mom talked to Kim’s mom about an unrelated issue.  My mother, having been raised a Southern Gentlewoman, is not a screamer, but she has a firm and dangerous tone when she is mad.  And boy, was she mad.  The one statement that came through clearly was, “It’s a matter of integrity.”   

In my adolescence, it seemed far more convenient to lie, especially to my parents, to get what I wanted.  So I did.  I even said things like, “Lying to your parents is okay, even necessary,” and honestly believed it.

But when my mom said, “It’s a matter of integrity,” a seed was planted.  I lied to her and my dad plenty of times after that (after all, that was just my junior year), but I was conscious and remorseful of what I was doing.  Funnily enough, I was also lying to myself.

Ironically, this came home to roost when I was teaching high school.  I loved the punks and goths because they were honest about what they did (drinking, getting high), what they didn’t do (my assignments), and who they were.  I took the truthful, greasy-haired, leather-jacketed kid reeking of last night’s alcohol over the sweet (ha!) blond blue-eyed girl who told me earnestly that 4:20 was not a drug reference, and that’s why she wanted it on her yearbook page.

Lying is a form of protection borne of the need to preserve others’ projections of us.  I was trying to protect my parents from knowing that I was not the person they projected me to be, however unconsciously.  I wasn’t as good or smart as I thought they thought I was, and I desperately didn’t want them to know that.  My students, even my college students (even graduate students!) have done the same thing with me.  I recently realized, in one of those lessons that needs to be experienced over and over again, is that I can’t take this personally.  As I wrote in my journal back in 2008:

What this tells me is that it’s [lying] not about me, the authority figure, but the person him or herself.  It may be a case of having high self-expectations and knowing you are falling short, but you don’t want to admit that to anyone, so you make up excuses or lie or get defensive when people see those cracks in your armor that you thought were invisible or that you had covered up, or even worse, that you didn’t even know were there. 

Now, when Sharon Salzberg, meditation teacher extraordinaire, talks about integrity, she means something more conceptual, as in living your values. I wrote about that later in the same journal entry:

Maybe it’s as basic as thinking and acting with integrity, not only toward others, but toward myself.  Sometimes I get so caught up in doing things so that others will like and respect me, that I don’t even do the things that I like and respect about myself.  In other words, I’m performing for others for the sake of my ego, as opposed to thinking about what I really want in life.  My ego…protects those small brittle places to make it so that I’m not vulnerable.  I figure if I try really hard to appease my ego, than those vulnerabilities will go away.  What I’m seeing is that they don’t; and that the ego stretches me too thin so I cycle through those dark moments time and again—that deep-seated anger at trying to play nice and to play strong as opposed to really getting down to business. 

I need to define for myself what acting with integrity really means.  It doesn’t mean doing what I want to do and not doing what I don’t want to do:  it means being truthful, even so far down and deep as learning to recognize those hard truths about myself.  It also means being generous toward others and myself. 

At the very least, then, I hope I can lie less to myself about what I can and cannot do.  My ego still wants people to like me, because maybe then I will like me; thus it thinks I can and should do all kinds of things.  I see the same thing with my colleagues.  At a meeting this week, every single person claimed to be overwhelmed.  You know what?  I am not overwhelmed—not yet this year anyway.  After years of burnout, my sabbatical taught me that taking time to do yoga, meditate, read, play in the garden, and even watch television, keeps me rejuvenated. 

Busyness is now the way we tell ourselves we are wanted.  The endless emails.  The taking on of more complex tasks.  I still sometimes get sucked into that, but can often come back to the place of “No more work this afternoon.  It’s time to read some young adult fiction.” 

If you are feeling overwhelmed, can you step away from your inbox, your promises to others, and keep the promise to yourself?  Can you offer yourself the generosity you would offer others?

      

 

Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience, or making peace with why I didn't get a pony at age 12

I hadn’t realized how much I missed my yoga teacher training until I had a similar experience at Kripalu this weekend.  Kripalu is a “yoga center” in the Berkshires that used to be a monastery.  It consists of a huge brick building that looks like a college dorm and a modern annex on several hundred acres, including a large lakefront area.  The sleeping areas are Spartan, the food nutritious, organic, and delicious (yes, those three adjectives CAN go together), and the people mostly blissful.  No cell phones were allowed in public spaces, so instead of looking at hand-held screens, people conversed, read, or just gazed out the windows to see the changing leaves on the surrounding mountains.  As my friend Christine said the first time I went to Kripalu, it’s basically a weekend where you hang out in your pajamas (i.e., comfy yoga clothes) and don’t wear makeup.  In other words, paradise.    

Our session was led by Sharon Salzberg, one of the originators of bringing meditation and mindfulness to the United States in the 1970’s, and Stephen Cope, who directs a research institute that examines the benefits of yoga on the human brain.  We were in what must have been the main chapel at one time as it looked and felt like a church sanctuary with a soaring ceiling, altar area, and choir loft.  It was a sacred space, but not a solemn one, thanks to our leaders’ humor and authenticity. 

Here are two important things I learned this weekend:

1.      Mindfulness consists of two levels of awareness:

·         Seeing what is happening; and

·         Seeing my reaction to it. 

In other words, these are two separate and distinct actions.  The thing itself—an event, a person, a conversation—does not cause a specific reaction; my mind does.  Thus, I have the opportunity to respond skillfully; but that is predicated on being aware of what is happening in my mind before actually saying or doing something I might regret.  But, boy, the mind sure likes to create havoc in the meantime!

For example, earlier this week, I received a terse text from a friend. Apparently, I had awakened her by responding to a text she sent a few hours earlier.  In my mind, I was being polite by responding, albeit not immediately, because I had a meeting, then was driving, then had dinner, all of which I prioritize before non-emergency texting.  I read her response to my overture as irritable, and I reacted by getting defensive.  At first, my mind went something like this:  “Why would she keep her phone on when she’s asleep? Who does that?  She’s just asking for trouble.  I was just trying to be a little generous and humorous about a situation in which she was clearly pissed off, and now she’s even more upset about an opportunity I wanted to share with her, and this is how she reacts?  All I was trying to do was be a good friend.” 

That was my first reaction.  My second was to realize that, for her, having her phone on was necessary.  She was out of town.  Her parents are in ill health, and she is one of their caretakers. Of course her phone was on, and of course she was irritated that I woke her up to chat about something innocuous.  Then I felt guilty for my initial reaction, which continued the negative cycle.  “I suck.  I’m a bad friend.  I should have known better.” And so on. 

And this is what the mind (or my mind anyway—perhaps everyone else is enlightened) does.  It creates a story that makes me the victim so I can feel aggrieved and righteous, and thus justify my anger.  When that doesn’t work, it creates another story that makes me the jerk. In both cases, I am still the center of attention.  This self-centeredness is one of the inner “enemies” that Bob Thurman and Sharon Salzberg write about in their new book, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit and Be a Whole Lot Happier.

In her talk on Sunday, Salzberg told us that the Tibetan Buddhists say we pick up anger when we feel powerless because it makes us feel strong.  Anger is not just one emotion—it’s a bundle of fear, grief, and helplessness.  In our American culture especially, we like to feel in control, when in fact, we really have very little power over events or people.  But we do have control—when we choose to use it—over our own emotions. 

2.       Compassion is the source of resilience.   

Specifically, compassion for the self leads to resilience.  This is because compassion recognizes the vulnerability that we all share: it is a moving toward others—emotionally or physically—to see if we can lend support, but it also means that we accept our lack of control over events and people (see above).  Sharon said, “Resilience is the ability to start over.”  She was specifically referring to meditation, when over and over a meditator loses herself in thought, taking away from her focus on the object of concentration, whether it be the breath, a mantra, or something else.  Meditation is bringing oneself back to the object with compassion instead of negative judgment.  In my story above, once I took another perspective on my friend’s response, I could feel compassion toward her.  After my bout of guilt, I was able to feel compassion toward myself, and see that it was a tiny incident that my mind exploded into something larger.  That discernment dissolved my guilt.    

In life outside of meditation, resilience is the ability to accept change with equanimity and compassion even when things don’t happen the way we think they should.  Resilience offers us the energy to make a change, instead of stewing over what we can’t change.  For example, how we were brought up (why didn’t I get a pony?), how our colleagues act (how dare she talk to me that way!), and how people blame us for things that are not our fault (you didn’t get into that class because you didn’t make an advising appointment when I offered it).  Resilience is the opposite of apathy, because it allows us to know that what we see right in front of us is not the whole story; instead it’s the planting of a seed.  We may not know what the seed may grow into, but that’s okay.  It’s about giving up control of outcomes, and also taking responsibility for our actions and reactions.

That’s all fine and good you (I) say.  But what about the real world, when things happen and we instantly have shaming, blaming, angry thoughts?  What was so great about Sharon Salzberg is that she revealed that even though she has been meditating for over 40 years, her mind still offers those same negative stories.  This made her accessible and real, and also opened up the possibility for growing my own compassion and resilience.  Despite flunking compassion in yoga teacher training, it feels like there is hope for me now.

The Lazy Yogi

I have been thinking a lot about dharma lately, in the way that Stephen Cope defines it as a vocation or sacred path.  In The Great Work of Your Life, he writes, “Yogis believe that our greatest responsibility in life is to this inner possibility—this dharma—and they believe every human being’s duty is to utterly, fully, and completely embody his [her] idiosyncratic dharma” (p. xxi). 

In the book, he gives examples of famous people (including Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Robert Frost, Susan B. Anthony among others) and non-famous contemporaries who have, in his descriptions, initially struggled with and then came to embrace their dharma.  Finding and walking one’s true path is not easy, he concludes.  There is still plenty of struggle along the way.  Many of these folks went against the expectations of society to serve a specific, higher purpose; often for art, often for social justice.  There is a resolve, an obsessiveness, to each of the men and women he cites. 

People who live their dharma stand out.  This week, Mat Johnson (no relation—that we know of anyway), author of Pym and other novels, graphic novels, and nonfiction, visited our campus.  Pym was the campus-wide book selection.  Full disclosure:  I did not read the novel since I wasn’t going to be teaching it this fall and had heard some negative reviews from colleagues.  By a quirk of fate, I was invited to dinner with Johnson and so attended his talk beforehand. 

He read the first chapter and it was electrifying, funny, satirical, and smart all at the same time.  I found out later that we were the last stop on a two-year campus tour, which could have meant that he phoned in his performance. However, it was clear he meant every word and his answers to questions were generous and sincere, even though he had no doubt heard them hundreds of times before.  At dinner, he answered questions from faculty with the same authenticity and engaged in conversations about the differences between literary fiction (creates new structures) and genre fiction (performs the genre as well as possible).  It was clear to me that this dude found his dharma.  His study of 19^th century fiction in particular (he has a thing for Poe) and deep knowledge of contemporary authors meant that he didn’t have much time for much else in his life beyond his family and his work.  And that’s just fine for him, as it was for Gandhi, Tubman, Frost, etc., whom Stephen Cope writes about.

So I wonder about the rest of us. For the folks listed above, finding her/his dharma meant a combination of tenacity, creativity, and perhaps luck, being born at the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.  When I asked Johnson about the ratio of creativity versus stamina in his writing process (I was really asking whether it was more about talent or hard work), he said it was more about obsessiveness.  When he’s working on a particular project, which can be for months at a time, that’s all he thinks about.  This matches what Cope says about his case studies.  Each one of them had a singularity of purpose that translated into copious hours of work.

I have come to the conclusion that I am too lazy to reach my dharma, if that’s what it takes. I lack singularity of purpose.  I like to do a lot of different things, some of which are contradictory:  Write.  Run.  Yoga.  Teach. Create new ways to work within and against systems. Collaborate. Work by myself.  Read books, sometimes magazines. Take naps.  Drink coffee.  Drink beer.  Watch narrative television.  Study educational research. Meditate. Make popcorn on the stove.  Eat dark chocolate.  Daydream.

Obviously, I don’t have the time or inclination to achieve my dharma, whatever it might be. Luckily, according to the yogis, I have a few other lifetimes to figure it out. 

      

Racing to the Red Light

 Two fifty worth of gas on pump number five

A lottery ticket and a Colt 45

Scratch it right off, cash it back in

Just give me five more somebody gotta win

Somebody gotta win, it happens all the time

Ending up spending your every last dime

Racing to the red light

                        James McMurtry, “Racing to the Red Light”

Normally, riding my bike on the East Bay Bike Path on a weekday morning is relaxing and refreshing.  The Sheriff (see http://laughteranddoubt.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-east-bay-bike-path-sheriff.html) in me isn’t on high alert because there are fewer people out, and those who are know the courtesies of sharing that ten foot wide ribbon of pavement.  And last Wednesday didn’t start out any different.  It was cool, crisp, sunny, with little wind. 

Part of what makes riding a bike better than running is that sense of rhythm with a minimum of effort, especially since the EBBP is flat and fairly straight.  You can see far ahead, all the while enjoying the scenery on the left and right.  But that, of course, was before fall began. 

I didn’t used to have anything against nuts.  I happen to like peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, pine nuts, and even those weird ones in the mixed batches.  The problem is that squirrels like nuts as much as I do, and they appear to be anticipating an apocalyptic winter as free of nuts as an elementary school classroom.  “Gather ye nuts while ye may!” must have been the Squirrel Laureate’s battle cry.  As a result, whenever I started sailing  along in 21^st gear, wind-created tears dripping down my face, I would have to brake for a little brown furry body, jaw bulging, frantically trying to decide whether to cross the path or not.  Unlike rabbits, who break for cover when disturbed, squirrels can’t seem to make up their minds.  My momentum was lost, and so was my good mood.

Momentum is an unsustainable energy because it relies on the force of the movement itself.  When I depend on momentum, I’m not really in control of my body.  In the case of running or biking, I gain momentum by going down a hill, but especially in biking, I may not be able to stop when I need to.  When we were skiing in Colorado, the instructors cautioned us always to be in control of the skis.  Nels marveled that I could go faster than him down the mountain, but it was mostly because I was barely one tick ahead on the right side of the control dial. 

For a long time, I violated my yoga teachers’ instructions by swinging my legs up into Shoulderstand (head and shoulders are on the floor, legs pointed up toward the ceiling), putting undue pressure on my neck. It took a long time to strengthen my core just bring my legs up.  I still haven’t learned how not to rely on momentum in Headstand, though, which means I have to be next to a wall so I don’t flip over.  I used to think that staying up in Headstand was the hard part, but it’s not.  Getting there is.

Momentum, ironically, makes us lazy.  When we rely on the force of movement, then we are not using, and therefore not strengthening, physical muscle. 

Momentum has non-physical dangers as well.  In my work life, it can be addictive, as if I can get a million things done fueled by excitement and/or caffeine.   However, like the Dexatrim of my youth, the letdown is powerful.  There will never be enough time to do all that I want to do, or feel that I must do.  There will always be people and tasks that call to my ego: “Come, do this!  You will be good at it/It will be fun/People will like you/If you don’t, your next job will be wearing the Lady Liberty costume waving to cars next tax season.”  If I rely on excitement or adrenalin to carry me through my day, then I am not using my other, deeper, muscles of the heart and mind.   

Living by momentum is nothing new.  Back in the 1840’s, Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  And as James McMurtry put it, we are all racing to the red light:  the inevitable stop of death.  It makes me wonder why I’m in such a hurry, and what I lose when I don’t move, work, eat, and live mindfully and deliberately.  It’s a lesson I need to learn over and over again.  Thankfully, the squirrels are there to teach me.    

    

      

The Essence of Home

Can you feel at home in two different places? 

We have now lived in our house in Bristol, Rhode Island, longer than we lived in our house on Rayle Place in Bloomington, Indiana.  Because we didn’t have the foundation of being surrounded by family, friends, and familiarity (you’re pretty familiar with a place if you have had time to earn four degrees from the local university), it’s taken awhile for Rhode Island to feel like home.  We don’t have the benefit of children to connect us with the local Bristol community through meeting other parents and spending time in schools and other activities.  Both of us work outside Bristol as well.  Plus, as Rhode Islanders know, Bristol can be an insular community.  Periodically, arguments pop up in the local paper about who can call herself or himself a Bristolian, and it’s about how many generations your family has been there, not how many years you yourself have lived there.  In other words, Nels and I will never be Bristolians. 

At the same time, we have connected to the community in various ways; Nels in his Fantasy Football League and me with Bristol Yoga Studio, and then of course through wonderful neighbors like the Kallmans and friendly chats with people on the East Bay Bike Path.  Coupled with friends from Rhode Island College, after eight years, along with fixing up the house so it reflects who we are, the place feels more and more like home.  

When we come back to Bloomington, as we did last week, it feels like a time warp.  Conversations and relationships pick up where they left off, as if the conversation itself is ongoing, even if the participants stepped out for months or years.  I haven’t seen my first mentor and only principal Chuck in a little over a year, but we sat in the back of a boat on Lake Lemon while our friend Sarah gave us a tour and talked about everything from educational policy to Dexter to relationships with parents seamlessly. Up front, our other three friends had their own conversation and occasionally jumped into ours.  I wasn’t the outlier or visitor; I was just one of five, as Chuck put it, kindred spirits.

Something similar happened at the softball field the next night, although I will hasten to say that it’s not as if everything and everybody stayed the same, as if frozen in time.  The guys are grayer, the women have more laugh lines (my sister-in-law says women age better than men these days.  Sorry, guys).  Individuals have changed jobs and life trajectories.  Parents have died, kids have been born, and the kids who were in elementary school are now in college or out on their own.  So even though the conversations may have the same tenor, they differ slightly in content.  Regardless, the similarities were more striking than the changes.          

When we first moved to Bristol, I would go on walks around the town, looking at the houses from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and marvel at how familiar it felt.  After I found out many of the homes were built by merchants and captains who benefited from the slave trade (Bristol had several rum distilleries and was thus part of the Triangle Trade), I lost my romantic viewpoint, but I bet I could walk into the old colonials and Victorians and the smell and feel would resonate.  Maybe it’s a sense of déjà vu (as David Crosby sings: “We have all been here before”).  Whatever it is, I appreciate the hardware store owners who helped us figure out what tools we needed for de-wallpapering and painting, the postman who gives out lollipops, the librarian who recommends books based on our check-out record, and being able to walk to the yoga studio or coffee shop if I choose.

It’s also about routines.  In Bloomington, even if we feel accepted, we are still guests.  In Bristol, I can settle back into my daily routines: write, run, work, eat, rub Mr. Spock’s belly, hang out.  This also feels like home, especially when I connect back with friends and colleagues, whether they knew I left or not.  

     

 Home is not necessarily about where you grew up.  Home is where you feel peace and belonging and a sense of security.  A sense of rightness with the place and the people.  Being with people who get you—and still like you—makes a place home. 

Adversity and Redemption

When it comes to challenge and adversity, I’m not a huge fan.  I take seriously the comforts of time and space, knowing they are privileges of culture, class, and education.  Plus not having kids.  

Perhaps running races doesn’t seem like the best way to avoid adversity, but it’s possible to make it feel less challenging.  One is by preparation.  In August, once the gasping humidity of July was over, 30 mile weeks became 40 mile weeks, hills were trotted up instead of walked, and occasional trips to the high school track started happening.  But preparation is not just about training.  It’s about carefully choosing clothes the night before a big race, bringing alternative shirts and socks in case conditions should change, and snacks and drinks are packed for before, during, and after the race.  For longer races, a lot of thought goes into what to wear and what to eat and drink.  Not doing so leads to chafing and/or bonking, the twin banes of distance running.    

The Surftown half-marathon seemed like a good time to open up the ol’ dusty box of adversity I had been avoiding.  I imagined feeling the pain and drain and still going, even up dastardly Watch Hill at mile 10, trucking on through the finish line, hot on the heels of the two-hour pace group.  It was time, I decided, to move away from safety and comfort and to learn that it wasn’t really pain I was feeling, merely sensation.  Yoga teachers advise you to take a pose until you feel sensation, but not pain.  Running coaches have the opposite approach, saying things like, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”  I figured I would take the middle path, and show myself that it wasn’t really pain I was feeling, merely sensation.  That is, unless I broke an ankle or something.  “Heh, heh,” I thought. “I’ll show myself what I can do.  Think how much energy and power I’ll have, even if I’m only able to crawl back to the car!”

Alas, the universe had something else in mind.  It saw my preparation for adversity and laughed loud and long. 

We got to Misquamicut Beach 45 minutes early, which seemed pretty good until I saw the huge, rapidly filling parking lot after dropping off Nels to go find his pace group buddies.  As I walked to the check-in tent, I thought about getting in the bathroom line right away, as we had just spent an hour in the car after two coffees and plenty of water.  I decided no, better to get my race bib first.  Mistake #1.  I could not get my bib, because I didn’t bring a photo ID.  The woman resisted my pleas, which rapidly turned to incredulity mixed with fury.  I explained about being parked a mile away.  I also said that nobody would want to run as me.  She would have nothing of it. 

I had to run a mile back to the car, and then a mile back, just to get my bleeping driver’s license so I could wear a bleeping bib to run a bleeping 13.1 mile race.  I tore back through the fall festival, ignoring the pygmy goats, warning all incoming runners that they would need their ID’s.  I zipped through the parking lot, dodging cars and runners who had obviously known that running a race was like boarding an airplane.  What was next, searching my New Balance capris for sharp objects?

I ran all the way back, license in hand, finally getting the bib and checking my stuff into baggage claim.  Luckily, I still had a water bottle and a gel tucked into my capris.  I got into the 20 person long port-a-pottie line, ready to take my gel and finish my water, because by now I really had to pee, and it was 10 minutes before the race was to begin.  The announcer’s calls were more and more urgent—“Stay out of the road! Five minutes to race time!” and I started to panic a bit, along with my fellow runners.  I reached back to take my gel, and it was gone.  Are you bleeping kidding me?  So I was about to start the race late, having already run two miles, with no nutrition besides one bar and one banana over an hour ago.  Clearly, the two-hour pace group would be running without me. 

Those first five miles, I was pissed at everyone and everything.  They were out of Gatorade at the first water stop.  The roads were narrow, bumpy, and crowded as people jockeyed for space.  A woman with long arms connected by giant elbows was swinging them back and forth like she was sawing something.  A couple with headphones ran side by side, blocking anybody who wanted to go around them.  Back in kindergarten, I learned about the value of giving people space due to a blond-haired girl named Jenny who happened to be a biter.  These folks had obviously not met her.

I felt terrible about how I dealt with adversity—being mean to the volunteer, cussing in front of Nels’ pace group, complaining in the bathroom line.  Even when I thought I was ready for adversity, because it came in an unexpected package, I handled it poorly.  Then I began noticing what was going on around me.  The volunteers and spectators were supportive.  The sky was blue, breeze light, sun warm.  The runners were cheerful, respectful, and nobody tried to bite me. 

My regular running mantras did not suffice in this situation, so I searched for a new one, realizing how grateful I was to have the ability and desire to run this race, even if I was clearly not going to meet my goal of two hours.  My mantra became “thank you.”  The universe was not testing me out of nastiness or spite, after all.  Instead, it was offering me the opportunity to appreciate what I can do when I don’t obsess about imaginary obstacles. 

And that’s what adversity is.  Imaginary.  My attempt to gird my loins was based on the faulty assumption that I could control what happens, an assumption I make often.  I have other imaginary adversaries and adversities, mostly related to my ego, who likes everything to be predictable and according to its design.  There’s a bigger design out there, though.  Understanding and accepting that, especially when there is pain or fear involved, is not easy, but I hope today’s 2:06:59 run, smiling for 8.1 miles of it, will get me a little closer.          

        

Springsteen and the Eagles: Present and Alive

They’re here to hear their favorite songs.  But what they really pay you for is to be as present and alive as you can be.

            Bruce Springsteen

From what I have read, Bruce Springsteen shows are famous for the unexpected.  Sometimes, according to the article by David Fricke in a recent Rolling Stone, the band doesn’t even know what is coming next until they hear the chords from Springsteen’s guitar, or he makes a specific motion with his hands. 

This is in contrast to the Eagles, who pretty much plan every note and nuance of a live performance.  The band is a well-oiled machine, rehearsed and ready to give the crowd what they want, along with some things the band thinks they should want.

While their respective eras overlap some, especially now in their golden years, the Eagles’ best work (besides “Hole in the World” from 2003—featuring some of the best harmonies in rock outside of CSN), was in the 1970’s and Springsteen’s was in the 1980’s (with the exception of The Rising album in 2002).  Interestingly, both bands’ later hit records were in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the 12^th anniversary being just this last week.  Both bands are responsive to the cultural, political, and economic zeitgeist of the times.  I respect that.  I want that.  While I appreciated Prince’s 1999 as much as today’s kids value Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, that’s not the music I go back to, or that sustains me.  I want music with heft, with meaning.  Springsteen and the Eagles both deliver, even when they are singing about girls in flatbed Fords or pink Cadillacs.

Now, I’ve never seen Springsteen with the E-Street Band, although we were front row center for a solo acoustic tour, which was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.  Nor have I seen the Eagles.  While I’m attracted to the idea of Springsteen putting together a different show every night, with the band being “present and alive,” four hours of music sounds exhausting.  At the same time, though, we have, on more than one occasion, turned down the opportunity to spend $150 per ticket to see the Eagles.  Why?  Because we are not going to see anything we can’t appreciate on the record. 

For me, the Eagles symbolize comfort.  The Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 1 was the first CD I ever bought.  When I was away at college, I sang to “Peaceful Easy Feeling” at the top of my lungs and felt less lonely.  When I was ready to leave a boyfriend, I belted “Already Gone” and fucking meant every single word.  Don Henley once disparaged those songs as vapid, but perhaps vapidity is in the eye of the beholder.  He also said that he hopes the Eagles are remembered for the work they put in, and I think that’s as valuable as Springsteen committing to the moment in every single show. 

The Eagles offer familiarity and professionalism.  Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band offer passion and living in the moment.  As a teacher and student, I appreciate both in instructors.  As an audience member, I appreciate both in performers.  When an audience comes to see the Eagles, they know what they are getting, and they paid a hefty sum for it.  Same with Springsteen—they know they don’t know what they are getting, and they have reconciled themselves to that simply by showing up.  

In our lives, in everyday interactions and in relationships where we have specific agendas, we may seek polish over risk-taking or vice versa.  Most of us probably lean one way or the other, but what if we opened up ourselves to appreciate whatever is presented?  Maybe it’s not so much the performer or teacher that matters, but our reaction.  If, as students, audience members, or just participants in a conversation, we don’t come in with certain expectations, perhaps we are opening ourselves up to a whole new kind of magic—the kind that comes with being present and alive.       

You're Almost There

One common feature of road races are course marshals, who keep you going in the right direction, usually offering support and encouragement along the way.  I found my first and only time as a course marshal at the Cox marathon this spring to be rewarding.  Mile 11 was my post, and I was there for a good three hours, from the swiftest runners to the people who were suffering so much I wondered if they would make it to the finish line.  I enjoyed offering encouragement of the boisterous and loud variety, and was surprised that so many runners thanked me.  I wanted to thank them instead, for showing the courage and persistence it takes to run long distances.

As a runner, it’s inspiring to be in the pack at the starting line and see so many people with different approaches and expectations; but marshals get to see the fast, the slow, and the painful.  Like anybody else, I admire the physical grace of the individuals who run efficiently and easefully, as if they were meant to be loping across the plains.  But I really applaud the people for whom running is a considerable emotional, spiritual, and physical effort.  To train for a race, especially a half-marathon or marathon, requires stamina and fierce determination for anyone, but especially for those of us whose physical gifts are not in the running category.  As John Bingham, the self-described “Penguin” says, it’s not getting to the finish line that’s the achievement; it’s showing up at the start.      

That’s probably why it bugs me when marshals say “you’re almost there” when I’m clearly not even close to “there,” presuming they are referring to the finish line.  Besides, “almost there” has different connotations, depending on the context and the person.  If someone says that at the 2.5 mile mark, for example, of a 5K (3.1 miles), the amount of effort it takes to shift from fourth to fifth gear means that last half mile feels like it’s halfway across the country, and thus not anywhere close to “there.”  If it’s a longer race, that last half mile means you are just trying to survive, trying to summon up some dignity by smoothing out your grimace, wiping the salt and snot from your crusted face, and trying not to visibly limp for the spectators and cameras at the finish.

Today on the bike path, I was out for a leisurely run on a sunny, cool, and breezy fall day.  Because I had gotten up late, the path was a lot busier than usual.  A couple of casual bikers passed me—and I know they were casual because they were not wearing helmets, colorful shirts or bike shorts—and the guy in the Red Sox cap turned around and said, “You’re almost there.”  Whaaat?  Dude, I am 3.2 miles into an eight mile run.  I am NOT almost there, and how do you even know where my there is?   I don’t even care about there, because I’m enjoying here so much.  So take your there and shove it.  Up there.

So where is there?  Now, in a race, there usually refers to a finish line.  On a road trip, there is usually a pre-determined destination, hopefully with a swimming pool for the kids and a mini-bar for the grownups.  But otherwise, who knows where there actually is?  And is it just a fantasy, a Shangri-La of when I’ve graduated college/gotten married/gotten a real job/bought a house/kid goes to college that you will have determined to have reach there? 

“There” is a moving target at best, a chimera at worst.  There is the adage about journeys versus the destination, but life seems to be more fluid than that.  It’s almost like when we think we have reached that magical there, it vanishes in a puff of smoke, and we are meant to set out again, perhaps blindly, perhaps with guidance, onto another path, seeking yet another there. Maybe there is no destination, and if there is one, maybe it’s just a hollow promise.

“There” implies a finality, a sense of closure or ending.  When we talk about closure, we usually mean that we have set aside some issue or relationship with a sense of done-and-over-with.  But I am not sure anything is ever final.  We carry the vestiges of past relationships and experiences in our bodies, hearts, and minds whether we want to or not.  We may earn a degree or a certificate, but realize that training is ongoing.  We may get married, but realize that relationships are still work.  We may get a promotion, but realize that responsibilities and expectations have grown as well.  We may retire, but realize that for life to be meaningful, there has to be more than golf, book clubs, and playing bridge on the computer.   And these are markers of privilege.  How do the non-privileged know where their theres are?   

I’m not sure I want to get there, wherever there is.  For sure, I’m ready to be done with certain emotions, people, and experiences.  But the here is so much more important than the there, even when we are trained to think otherwise.    

  

The Heart of Rock and Roll

My very first rock concert was Loverboy, with the opener Huey Lewis and the News.  This was in 1982, at the Fort Wayne Memorial Coliseum, the summer before I went to high school.  Now, to be fair, I wanted to go see KISS for my ninth birthday several years before.  I’m not sure how I came to own the Destroyer album, which was probably my first non-Winnie-the-Pooh record, but I loved “Detroit Rock City,” “King of the Night Time World,” and “Shout It Out Loud.”  My parents convinced me that the concert would be smoky and therefore I wouldn’t enjoy it.  I reluctantly conceded, and consoled myself by listening to Gene and the boys through my headphones, singing aloud with a candlestick as my microphone.  

It always makes me laugh that Huey Lewis opened for Loverboy, who seemingly dropped off the map shortly after that.  My friend and neighbor, Kimberly, was obsessed and introduced our small circle to leather-clad, bandanna-wearing lead singer Mike Reno and the rest of the band.  We even formed our own, all-girl band that played pretend instruments, called The Avenues.  My brother inadvertently provided the name when his own band (that played real instruments, so loudly the neighbors complained) rejected the name Avenue in favor of Angstrom.

Kimberly’s older siblings were also into rock and roll, and so we were listening to Peter Frampton and the Doobie Brothers at a tender age.  I was an adult before I understood what a doobie was, and therefore what the picture inside the Minute by Minute album signified (I thought it was some kind of bug).  I moved pretty quickly from pop-oriented WMEE to WXKE, Rock 104, Fort Wayne’s self-reported Home of Rock and Roll (not to be confused with the heart of rock and roll—more on that later).  I remember singing loudly to Pat Benatar’s “Hell Is for Children” in the car, horrifying my mother.  She didn’t buy that the song was about the problems of child abuse, and I can thank Benatar for having to listen to news or classical music in the car forever after.

When I went back to Fort Wayne last week, I found that Rock 104 is still around, and plays many of the same songs from my youth.  Even Doc, their most popular deejay and arguably the city’s most famous local celebrity, is still on the air.  In fact, I heard a radio ad that he needed a female partner in the morning who knew a lot about music and sports.  I fantasized about being Doc’s sidekick, trading one-liners and insulting callers, and how I would break it to Nels that we had to move back so I could take this part-time gig.  I dismissed it after realizing I just don’t know that much about the local Fort Wayne sports scene. 

That nostalgia trip led to another this weekend as Nels and I visited the Melody Tent on Cape Cod to see Huey Lewis and the News, who were celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their biggest-selling album, Sports.  I never bought that one, but didn’t need to, since it seemed like every song was on the radio.  I wasn’t particularly excited to see this show, as I knew Chris Hayes, the lead guitarist, wasn’t touring with the band any more, but the album was one of Nels’ favorites from high school (he said he and his buddies especially liked “I Want a New Drug.”  Hm.).  On the way to the Cape, we listened to a greatest hits compilation, and reacquainted ourselves with their catalog.  When I tried to explain why I was attracted to Chris Hayes, I talked about his hair that was spiky on the top and long in the back.  Nels asked in disbelief, “You mean a mullet?”  And I had to concede that yes, I was once in love with a guy in a mullet.  Not my proudest moment. 

Despite Hayes’ absence, the show was high-energy and fun.  The Melody Tent was sold out and almost everybody there was our age and knew the words to every song—it was like being at a high school reunion without all the angst.  Many of the band members were original, including the drummer who always wore a vest, and Johnny, the sax player that Huey calls to in their biggest song, “The Heart of Rock and Roll.”  There is not a shred of darkness in Huey Lewis songs, which hearkened back to a more naïve time in my life and is probably the source of their current appeal to other 40-somethings. 

My visit home and shows like these remind me of the importance of music in forming my sense of self and the world.  I used to envy peers whose parents introduced them to the Beatles or Stones, but my friends and I found our own way through our older brothers and sisters.  Yes, we were exposed to illicit—and therefore tantalizing—ideas about drugs and sex through rock and roll, but it was also a safe medium for adolescent longing.  So, if a band from your youth comes to town, check ‘em out, not to be cynical and critical, but to remember the discoveries they offered you.

  

Walter White vs. Francis Underwood

You know that old saying, a couple who watches television together stays together?  Well, I hope that television is not the only predictor of marital harmony.  Just last year, I had to break it to Nels that, after watching the first two episodes of Game of Thrones, the violence against women was more than I could stand.  He would have to watch the rest on his own.  To his credit, he wasn’t surprised by my reaction.  I almost quit watching The Sopranos after the scene where Dr. Melfi gets raped in the stairwell of the parking garage, so he knew I probably wouldn’t last with Thrones, where the carelessness regarding human and animal well-being is at an all-time low. 

However, Nels was surprised when I declined to keep watching House of Cards after three episodes.  His parents recommended it and the critics raved about it, so it seemed an obvious series to obtain from Netflix (to his parents’ credit, they loved The Sopranos and even enjoyed seeing Book of Mormon.  Who knew?).  But after the first disc, I was done.  The writing and acting are excellent, and there is very little physical violence, although Kevin Spacey, in his role as Francis Underwood, Congressman from South Carolina, kills a dog in the first episode.  Ostensibly, it is to stop the dog’s suffering from being hit by a car, or so Francis informs us in a voiceover.  An animal as the first victim of a series—and I’m a cat person, not a dog person—is not a good harbinger.  I get that the scene was symbolic, and perhaps we were to be sympathetic to Francis, but I did not buy it.  Turns out, my misgivings were correct.

It is not as if this is a violent show; at least not in physical terms.  This time, the women, including Francis’ wife, Claire, played by Robin Wright, are as bad as the men, and the violence is of the underhanded, conniving sort.  After three episodes, I could find very little humanity or empathy in any of the characters.  It was another cynical view of what happens in our nation’s capital, like Veep, only without the wink-wink humor (so, actually it’s now three shows that Nels has to watch on his own.  I lasted most of a season on that, but the humor was just too mean-spirited). 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not completely naïve about the wheelings and dealings that take place in DC.  And two of my current favorite shows, Homeland and The Americans, question the ethics and issues of power among the different agencies and the representatives we elect. (We started watching Scandal, another DC insider tale, too, and I'm still not sure I will stick with it).  It is not so much the story content, but the complexity of the characters that attracts me.  In Homeland and The Americans, we get some backstory.  We understand where the characters come from, and how they came to be.  They are imperfect, make huge mistakes that impact not only themselves, but their families and the country.  But they are written as well-rounded human beings.  I just don’t see the same thing in Veep, in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus acts as if she’s Larry David in drag, and in House of Cards, where there is not one sympathetic character. 

My friend Julie K called me on this when I told her I wasn’t going to watch House of Cards any longer because I found it mean-spirited and cynical.  She said, ”But you love Breaking Bad.  Isn’t Walter White cynical too?”  A fair point.  I am no fan of Walter White.  However, we watched how he evolved into Heisenberg.  We saw how he convinced himself this is what he had to do, even as other options were open to him.  I certainly don’t root for Walter White, although a tiny bit of me cringed when his brother-in-law found the Leaves of Grass book with the telltale inscription.  Walter White is more like Tony Soprano than Francis Underwood.  Flawed, certainly, and ruthless.  Yet, the writers exposed us to their vulnerabilities from the very first episode.  I did not see this with Francis.  I don’t give a crap what happens to Francis, his wife, or anyone else in the show.  I am however, riveted to seeing what happens with Walter.

Usually, I am seduced by good writing.  But right now, I’ll take the lousy writing and overacting in Under the Dome (note to Stephen King:  surely you could have proofed the scripts for terrible dialogue!) over the nastiness of House of Cards.  I know I am in the minority, but there are many well-written shows with empathetic characters that call for my attention.  House of Cards and Game of Thrones can survive without me.  

Folk Offerings: the Weird, the Funky, the Sublime

The Newport Folk Festival, with a big crowd for a drenched Friday and sold out for Saturday and Sunday, is now over.  What drew so many people—10,000 each day?  And who was missing?  The aging hippies with gray ponytails and Woody Guthrie t-shirts are all but gone.  In their place are mostly people in their 20’s through their 60’s, with Ray-Bans and shirts that advertise their love for obscure artists like Middle Brother or Andrew Bird or the Felice Brothers.  Bare skin, bracelets, and sandals on men and women.  Sneaked-in bottles of vodka or gin dumped in containers of Del’s Lemonade.  Long but companionable lines at the coffee stand, beer tent, and port-a-potties.  Politeness preventing the taking over of space from someone who stole a valuable piece of real estate with a blanket right outside the Harbor Tent and then disappeared.   

I felt a strong sense of belonging, maybe coming from experience.  As the grizzled veteran of eight years of Folk Festivals, I was asked for advice as we waited for gates to open.  Where should we go?  Who should we see?  All I could say was:  create some space by the main stage and then go explore.  At past Folk Festivals, I have felt too normal, much like I did the first time I attended Earth Day at Dunn Meadow at Indiana University.  It was the late 80’s and there were guys wearing skirts, almost everybody had on tie-dye, and I even marched in a Greenpeace parade.  But I was completely out of my element.  How could people be so happy and uninhibited?  I felt similarly going to Grateful Dead concerts in the 90’s.  Who are these people and wow, shouldn’t they be wearing underwear and taking showers?  At the Folk Fest, although the smell of pot lingered in the air, I bet everyone there had a shower that morning, and the only tie-dye I saw was being sold in a booth.

Beach towels and coolers, plastic tarps and quilts, picnic chairs and bags were side-by-side, eliminating space to tiptoe through.  In years past, people would leave narrow avenues of grass between their land claims.  Why is this Festival so big now?   What draws us?  What does folk music ask of us, and what does it offer us? 

Maybe it has something to do with the whole confessional piece of folk music.  The bringing out of emotional truths, as ugly as they can be.  Sometimes these truths are romanticized, as in glorifying doomed obsessions (John McCauley=everything), or making drinking, getting into fights, and almost dying sound hilarious (Jason Isbell’s “Super Eight Motel”).  The music is intensely personal, and the truth of experience draws us, searingly or painfully or self-deprecatingly.  Perhaps that’s part of the draw of this NEWport Folk Festival vibe.  The mirroring and articulating of emotion without mediation.  These artists (that’s what all the signs call them—not musicians—the artists selling their wares are “vendors”) offer up their secrets—which we can relate to--for public consumption and dialogue. We, the audience, have felt this way.  This despair, this rage, this embarrassment.  And we all continue to survive. 

I think we all want somebody to speak some truths to us, in this world of images and trying to sell us life as a commodity.  Make no mistake, the Folk Fest was full of commodity.  But the songs themselves, the artists who wrote and performed them, offered us insights into who we are.  Taking those scary emotions that we deny in order to feel good about ourselves, and putting them out there, saying here, see how ugly this is, but you can handle it.  You can even enjoy it, because it’s truer than any fake shit you’re throwing out to the world. 

I come to the Folk Fest for the sunshine, ocean breeze, music, and thrill of bringing in vodka in Canada Dry plastic bottles without getting caught.  I come for the Middle Eastern Mediterranean plate that costs $14 and I can only eat half of it.  I come for the free chips from Late July, and to stand in line at the bathrooms and the beer tent and the chance to win a free banjo.  I come for the vendor’s tents, fantasizing what it would be like to wear that chunky necklace or that funky hat, or even that skirt made out of a t-shirt that I can’t bring myself to buy for $55.  I come to walk around in the mud, put on sunscreen, always missing my collarbones and patches across the tops of my thighs, that I only realize when I take a shower that night and shriek in pain as the water sizzles across the burn.  I come to walk through the parking lots filled with cars from Georgia, Utah, Montanam, as well as Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.  I come mostly, though, to feel at home, with people who speak my language, who articulate secret longings or appreciate those who do. 

All this being said, I know there are people who are missing from this particular folk scene.  Even as I enjoy it, I wonder where they are and imagine how much they must miss their world.  Folk music can mean a lot of things, and really, this feels more like a celebration of American music (notwithstanding that there are always some international acts there).  You have the weird (Jim James), the funky (Trombone Shorty) and the sublime (Avetts) all there, holding up a mirror, saying you, I see you, I am happy you are here.  Perhaps it is these assurances we come for and respond to, even more than the setting, even more than the midsummer celebration, even more than the sense of belonging.