Damn Him, that Steven Pinker

You know how, when you’re listening to or reading something, you have a flash of “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Listening to NPR last week was a series of those moments.  I listened to shows about Title IX and how girls are more involved in sports at a young age, but that interest wanes later in the face of the hyper-masculinization of professional sports; how sports cost so much for kids that it is not the great equalizer of race and class that we might have imagined; and how cats have one paw in the household and three out in the wild.  I had Researcher Envy.  Why didn’t I choose to be a sociologist with sports as my focus?  How cool would that be now, with sports the epicenter of conversations about race, class, and gender?  Or maybe I could have been an anthrozoologist, and know why Ozzie refuses to take naps, Silent Bob is, well, silent, and Mama Cass pretends she’s Tony Hawk, zooming across our furniture like she was performing in the X Games?  Thus was the source of my envy.  I love being an educator and educational researcher, but let’s face it:  education is simply not as sexy as sociology and zoology. 

There was another show that stood out: an interview with Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard:  http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/10/02/writing-science-pinker.  He has a new book called The Sense of Style, and it’s about one of my favorite topics, good writing.  In the vein of Strunk and White, Pinker is a minimalist, and says that writing is about the visual as well as the lyrical.  I have no issue with either.  He’s also down with splitting infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions, which we can all be thankful for.   However, he went on to pick on his fellow academics, accusing us of convoluted terminology, excess verbiage, and all-around turgid prose.  Touché, my friend, touché.  As I embark on an exciting research project and counsel novice doctoral students about writing up their research, I realize he has a point.  While I do believe that complex thought and theories may indeed require equally complex writing (Habermas, to take one example), I understand the need for clarity and brevity.

As a language aficionado from way back, I knew about writing bullshit to sound as if I was smart (of course, many of my teachers were onto me and those of my ilk.  Mrs. Parsons was famous for saying, “Yes, but what do dat mean?” whenever I or one of my fellow Honors English students tried it).  Maybe some academics do that as well.  Steven Pinker, an insider, is not about to let us get away with bullshit. 

Despite my loyalty to needing three diverse theories to form a conceptual framework; to digging as deep and long as I can into philosophy and research to frame a literature review; and of course, triangulating my data,  I have decided that October is Haiku Month.  I will dedicate myself to writing, every day, a traditional version of  a haiku:  three lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and then 5 syllables, to hopefully gain an appreciation for clarity and image over an addiction to words with multiple syllables and meanings. 

I invite you to join me.  Share your daily haiku on Facebook, Twitter, or write it in your journal. Maybe the world will become a land of clarity and directness.  And it doesn’t even have to be a haiku.  Any poem format will do.

Here are mine so far, as of Oct. 5:

Oct. 1: Rain

Finally rain. Dull

skies, puddles, damp, sweaty smells

glad plants, grumpy me

Oct. 2: Swans

Swan soundly asleep

orange beak tucked in feathers

partner nibbles fish.

Oct. 3: Reading

Fiction takes away

the blues.  Handsome detective

plus supernatural.

Oct. 4: Loneliness

Nels out of town.  Should

I buy a new stove or fall

wardrobe? Maybe both.

Oct. 5: Sandwiches

Last BLT with

tomatoes from our garden?

Sun promises more.

What's your mantra?

Do you have sayings that you come back to, over and over again?  Words of wisdom from your own intuition (or what Emerson might call the Divine Spark) or from others, who might be friends, teachers, songwriters, or comedians? 

One friend of mine, when she went through a heartwrenching divorce, used the words “grace and dignity” to hold herself together.  I wanted to bang her ex over the head with a snow shovel (one of the old-fashioned ones with a metal scoop, not the new-fangled plastic kind), or at least say nasty things to him.  But she gave me the example of acceptance and moving on, so I felt like I had to as well.

Another friend who took on the huge commitment of a 500 hour yoga teacher training, while being a wife, mom to two pre-K kids, a small business owner, and consultant, used the word “Devotion.”  She even wrote it on her hands during those long weekends so she would not lose her sense of dedication.  It was important to her that she engage in such a life-altering commitment in a full-hearted way. 

Unlike my friends, I have been unable to settle on just one mantra.  These pictures are from around my desk, and I also have what I fondly call “the mantra envelope” where I put old mantras.  I used to type them up in big letters, but now I just scrawl them on orange stickies and tape them to my desk lamp. 

The latest is actually a question.  I was driving to a school to conduct some field observations and it was the first day.  Stuck in traffic on I-195 at 8:30 a.m., I could feel myself getting impatient about being there on time.  I despise being late.  It makes me feel self-conscious and as if I am taking more space than I should.  I have skipped classes as a student and meetings as a grownup because I did not want to walk in late and call attention to myself. 

In the car that day, I heard a voice ask, “Why are you in such a hurry?” 

The other voices in my head could have come up with a million reasons, and then I realized that there was no need to rush, whether in actuality or in my mind.  Having my heart race out of anxiety was not helpful.  I would get there when I got there.  I was not in charge; this was not my show. 

Sure enough, traffic lightened and I was walking up the steps to the school shortly before 9, when I was due to be there.  A couple of students who were just arriving said to me, “Miss, you’re late!”  probably thinking that I was  a teacher.  I signed in, and as I did so, I heard them explain to the office worker that they were late because they had stopped to get a snack.  Luckily, this was not my problem, and I floated down to the classroom where the kids were talking about what it meant to be a warrior.  It was a good morning.

Over the last couple of days, I have asked myself that time and again:  why are you in such a hurry?  When I am eating, working, doing laundry, washing my face, meditating (as if you could rush that), I have paused enough to realize that there is nowhere that important to be, at least not at the expense of my well-being. 

My very first mantra is on display in one of these pictures, but it may not show up because it’s so faded.  I got it from David Robinson, the leader of an NEH Seminar on Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller that I was lucky to attend at Oregon State back in 1998.  We were talking about how to make meaning out of the mundane tasks of life, and I, ever the skeptic, asked how it was possible to not just rush through household tasks, like washing the dishes. 

David said, “Make what is necessary in life fulfilling to do.” 

That blew my mind.  I wrote it down in my notebook, and then later wrote it in black Sharpie and put it on the bulletin board of the dorm room to which I had been assigned.  I brought it with me back to Bloomington and put it up in my office there, and now I have it here, in Bristol. 

We all encounter tasks and people in our lives that feel draining and less than worthwhile.  After spending four hours this afternoon answering email and only getting back to Monday of this week, I can attest to that.  But David’s statement reminds me that it’s up to me to decide that all tasks can have meaning.

I would love to see your own mantras or bulletin board pictures if you care to share.

Narrative Addicts Anonymous

We went to a comedy show with a real live comedian, Amy Schumer, for the first time this weekend.  Well, it was my first time.  Nels had been to comedy shows, and I had been to a few comedy clubs, but it’s not something I normally do.  When we saw David Sedaris, he was reading from his own work, and when we saw Steve Martin, he was being interviewed.  Both made me laugh, but if I ever attend a live recording of a comedy show, they will cut the footage when it comes to me.  I am just not that into it. 

I enjoyed Amy Schumer’s show to some extent, and I appreciated that she did what felt like a mix of extemporaneous work and rehearsed, well-timed jokes.  I am sure there’s a fine line there.  However, appreciating somebody’s talent and laughing so hard I pee a little are two different things. 

The next day, I realized it wasn’t her, it was me.

You see, I am addicted to narrative.  I need stories in my newspaper, comics, poems, conversations, songs, and everything else I read and hear.  The narrative doesn’t even have to be clear, like they taught us in middle school English.  I never could pick out the rising and falling action and the denouement.  I also don’t need a happy ending, or even much of an ending at all—but there has to be a thread to follow.  This is from “The Way It Is” by William Stafford:

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

One of the problems is that, at least for me, I am not always sure what I am holding onto.  That’s why the yogis and Buddhists teach practitioners to let go of the stories in our heads:  the stories about our identities, in which we say to ourselves variations of “I am a good teacher/a lousy runner/impatient/hate sour cream/live in my head.” 

But I must have story.  If I do not, what’s left?  The yogis and Buddhists say, “pure Being.”  That sounds pretty boring to me.  Sure, I have a series of unreliable narrators inside my mind, but it is certainly fascinating to see who is telling the truth and how that truth evolves, and how something seemed to be true at one stage of my life is most certainly not true at some other point.  Of course, this requires seeing the story as a witness, or reader, not as the protagonist.  If I am playing the protagonist, than I am merely, as my friend Chuck Holloway would say, “believing my own shit.” 

Philosopher Evan Thompson addresses this issue by critiquing the idea that the mind is merely inside the brain.  He says that the mind is relational and involves the body as well as outside concepts: “We inhabit a meaningful world because we bring forth or enact meaning.”   Mindfulness is “social, relational, and ethical.” 

However, I do get that there are cultural as well as personal stories that are dangerous.  We may have certain ideas about human beings based on social categories as opposed to who the person is as an individual.  Ian Hacking calls this the “looping effect” and says that when we categorize people, we change them by how we interact with them based on those categories, and how they think of themselves.  This is why so many issues about gender, race, and class continually get reinforced.  I have a lot of respect for people who provide a counter-narrative, breaking up the original story and creating a new one. 

I like to hear stories that offer me a new way of looking at the world, others, and even myself.  I remember when a professor told me that I wasn’t bad at math; I just hadn’t been taught it in a way that was meaningful to me.  I wanted to tell her to put down the crack pipe, as my students said to me when I said something outrageous, but now I wonder.  “Janet the math genius” offers a counter-narrative to my learned helplessness. 

Earlier this week, I dreamed that I lost my shoes at a ski resort when I traded them in for ski boots.  The shoe lady took me down to the basement, and there were lots and lots of shoes, but none of them were mine.  Shoes represent the identity, and the basement the subconscious.  Unlike in the dream, I am in no hurry to find my shoes.  I’ll just root around in the subconscious for a while, enjoying the threads and stories that emerge, and not wait for the “This Is a True Story” sign to pop up.  After all, it’s the reading that’s the best part, not the ending.

Another school year: time to head for the ditch

“It’s not a vocation; I’m more of a worker bee.”  Worker at a state agency, 20 years and counting

“If you do it right, it takes all you have.”  Public advocacy lawyer, 10 years in, looking for other work

I will be starting my 19^th year of teaching shortly, and I’ve vowed this time that I will not be a wrung out, hollow-eyed, sopping mess by the end of it, or even each Friday.  I used to take great pride in my work ethic, in my ability to power through 12 hour days, even though I would be practically sobbing as I left the house.  On the way home, I would be irritable, and then eat way too much, falling into bed with feelings of regret:  “I shouldn’t have said that to that student.  I should have answered more emails.  Why didn’t I do that thing I’ve been meaning to do?  And good God, did I really need that fourth piece of pizza followed by an ice cream chaser?” 

In the past, I’ve been jealous of people like my acquaintance above, a state worker whose vocation is not her job, but her running.  I have zero doubt that she is as conscientious at her job as she is in all other aspects of her life, but it’s clear from her statement that her job is just that: a job.  For a teacher to say that, though, would be anathema.  At the same time, we also have to avoid burnout, like my other acquaintance, the public advocacy lawyer.  Can a person have a vocation, particularly one that witnesses the very personal harm of social inequities day after day, without becoming cynical or burning out?

I freakin’ hope so, or we are all in a lot of trouble.

Mary Rose O’Reilley offers these questions, which I stole and put on my syllabus for student teachers, and yet also resonate for me personally:

Are you eating properly?

Are you exercising?

Are you practicing your art?

Are you involved with communities that love and honor and challenge you?

Do you have someone to talk to about your life?

Those of us who bear witness to suffering—and if you look hard enough, and work with people enough, you know this—need to keep these questions in mind.  If I cannot be whole and present for you because I am tired, upset, and/or have low blood sugar, then I am doing myself and you a grave injustice.  I admire my friends with endless energy and the ability to be social at all times, but that ain’t me.      

“Mind is like a train on rails and the koan knocks out the rails so we can find our true path.”  Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk

Mary Rose O’Reilley writes, “This phrase gives me a conceptual frame inside of which I can choose to not shut down, to not anesthetize myself, to not despair, to not apologize, and to not be ashamed.  Those in my experience, are the traps.  Those are the ways we get stuck in breakdown” (2005, p. 4-5). 

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that a person’s personal koan, or riddle to solve, is to figure out the train that runs on the tracks, because leaving the tracks is liberation.  For me, the train is my identity, and the twin tracks are anxiety and perfectionism.  And that’s why I work beyond my true capacity.  With that, in theory, I get recognition and appreciation, which I seem to crave.  It’s a self-perpetuating thing.  And that’s why work becomes overwhelming with no sense of satisfaction.  I am doing it for false reasons.

 

The thing is, I’ve known that these are my tracks for a while now, but I haven’t understood how to head for the ditch, as Neil Young would say.  However, when I think about it, I realize I actually do have the tools, and they are meditation and yoga.  So I have the way off the tracks, but I’m so attached to the tracks that I fit yoga into my lifestyle instead of the other way around. 

What if yoga came first and work second? 

I’ll just sit with that for a moment. 

It’s not like overworking has done me any good, or really allowed me to accomplish that much.

"'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch." Neil Young

I think I can now accept that life is not about seeking what’s comfortable, but what’s true.  It’s also about service, not overwork.  How much better will it be not only for me, but for others, if I choose genuine, authentic service, instead of the self-service that is simply to soothe my anxieties and perfectionism?  My risk is not jumping off a cliff, but at least heading for the ditch. 

 

     

The Bob Report

“Have you seen the brother?”

Our one goal, after Mr. Spock died a few weeks ago, was to get multiple cats who liked one another.    Mama Cass, Ozzie, and the brother-to-be-named later arrived last Sunday.  They were abandoned in a foreclosure in Fall River, and subsequently fostered by a woman named Deborah.  She lives in a small home with two other cats, so conditions were loving but perhaps a bit crowded.

 Mama Cass, a tuxedo three year old, meowed the entire 30 minute ride, but then started following me all over the house as she soon as she jumped out of the cat carrier.  Ozzie, who has luxurious long black and white fur (it’s even long between his toes, so I sometimes call him Sasquatch), had meowed a few times on the way home, mostly to keep Mama company.  He hid behind the subwoofer for much of the day, but would come out when I talked to him.  The brother cat, a tuxedo like Mama but without her rakish mustache, had curled up in the back of his carrier and didn’t talk at all on the way home.  

The entire day, he stayed at the bottom of the basement stairs.  He let us pet him, but refused to move.

Mama and Ozzie got more comfortable the next day, but the brother simply disappeared.  When we did not find him, we asked our neighbor Julie to help us search, as she has cats, fish, and kids, and we figured she had probably lost one or more of them on multiple occasions.  She couldn’t find him either.  Six hours later, Nels and I were emotionally exhausted, wondering how we were going to call Deborah and let her know that it took us less than 24 hours to lose a cat she had fostered for 18 months. 

Nels found him after some advice from Facebook friends.  “Look high,” several said.  Lo and behold, there he was, tucked away behind boxes of 45’s on a tall shelf of records that reached almost to the ceiling.  Finally the brother had a name: Silent Bob. 

Bob stayed on his perch unless Nels brought him down.  He would play with Ozzie and Mama for a few minutes until he heard a noise, such as a door shutting, the toilet flushing, or someone walking across the floor.  “He’s like a little old lady,” I fumed.  How could this cat not know, not visibly see, that we were the humans of his dreams?  Toys and scratching posts were strategically placed on each floor.  Blankets were washed and furniture vacuumed to remove Spock’s scent.  Two separate feeding stations and brand new litterboxes were on-hand.  The birdfeeder was filled, and a chair placed by the window for premium birdwatching.   

Every hour or two over the next couple of days, Nels would come up from the basement and give me what I started calling The Bob Report.

 “I put treats up on the shelf for him and they were gone!”

  “Somebody’s drinking water out of the water dish in the basement.”

 “Bob’s hanging out with me now.”

 I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m reading a juicy novel.  I was reading a chick lit book titled You Should Have Known about a therapist who (spoiler alert) finds out her husband  of 20 years was having an affair and suspected of murdering his lover and their baby.  To be interrupted to hear about Bob’s less-than-interesting exploits got old.  I was kind of mad at Bob, to tell you the truth. 

Then I remembered how terrifying it was to move to Rhode Island nine years ago.  Nels was traveling for work, so I was alone, unpacking boxes and going to the library to access the internet and my former life in Indiana.  At the corner of Chestnut and highway 136, I only turned left, because Stop and Shop, 1776 Liquors, and Wendy’s were located within a mile.  One time I decided to turn right, but when I got too close to the Mt. Hope Bridge, I was scared that if I crossed over I would not find my way back. 

If you know Bristol, my fear must seem ridiculous.  We live on a 10.1 square mile peninsula.  But my fear wasn’t just about crossing a literal bridge, but the very real and scary bridge between being a doctoral student and professor; between having intimate knowledge of IU and Bloomington as an undergraduate and grad student, and coming, as a newly minted assistant professor, to a college and town I didn’t know existed six months before. 

The book You Should Have Known is as much about the protagonist not knowing herself as it is about not knowing her husband.   I am glad Bob has reminded me to show compassion for myself, for Bob, and for others who are exploring new figured worlds, whether they are physical, social, or emotional.  It takes courage to be present to this, even if that courage means turning left or spending a few hours on a high shelf.    

                                                              Bob off the shelf

Bird Lessons

One of the many benefits of running on the East Bay Bike Path, besides the smooth surface, car-free and flat, friends we see on our daily jaunts, and watching the ships and fishing boats, is the wildlife.  Springtime is the best because there are opportunities to see babies of all kinds, from bunnies to foxes to lambs to many varieties of bird species.  I’ve always been attracted to the bigger, showy birds like the osprey, swans, and especially the egrets and blue herons.  There’s just something about watching an osprey dramatically swoop down, fish in beak, to feed her babies, or a swan use her long, powerful neck to discard some brush and choose other pieces for her nest, much like I imagine an artisan going through an abandoned building and finding treasure among the discarded wood and metal.  I also like watching an egret or heron stalk his fishy prey, sticking his beak in the water with precision and force, and then swallowing the morsel whole with a triumphant gulp.    

Those are the big birds—the obvious ones. But just as my friend Lesley introduced me to the concept that even plants without flowers can be cool, some bike path friends have helped Nels and I recognize and appreciate the smaller, less dramatic birds.  Last fall, a woman who rides her bike regularly, always with binoculars, showed us a night heron, which is smaller and grayer than a blue, but literally has a ponytail.  Rachel, another avid birdwatcher, and Nels spotted a little blue heron, which are apparently somewhat rare, or maybe just difficult to see.   And this week, another woman biker called our

attention to a Virginia Rail and her babies.  This golden-beaked bird skims across the seagrass and mud making a small whistling sound as she calls out to her chicks, which are adorably black and fuzzy. 

The night heron, little blue heron, and Virginia Rail may not have the size and plumage of their spectacular avian cousins, but they are fascinating in their own right.  It reminds me that so much is hidden right in front of us unless we take the time to look, or have a helpful and patient guide to introduce us to subtle features of the landscape, whether in the natural world or in a specific context or person.  When I see something new in a place that I have been through hundreds, if not a thousand times, like the bike path, I wonder what else I’m missing in my everyday landscapes of home, the yard, the neighborhood, my drive to work.  And what am I missing if I don’t take the time to have a real conversation with someone, and pay attention to facial expressions and body language, along with the obvious—the swans of communication—words. 

The smaller birds also remind me of the intrinsic worth of nature.  Places in Bristol, like the Audubon center, along with more cultivated places like Colt State Park, the town beach, and Mt. Hope Farm, are reminders that green space, beach grass and mud, along with open water, are refuges not only for wildlife but for us—for the heart, the spirit, the mind. 

It seems we are in an era where everyone and everything needs to prove that it’s a means to an end, as opposed to being of value in and of itself.  Students—even those whose talents clearly lie in the arts or humanities—are being pushed to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).  This movement of prioritizing “hard science” is such that a recent graduate of the URI/RIC doctoral program received the University of Rhode Island Graduate School Excellence in Doctoral Research Award (non-STEM).  To categorize winners as STEM and non-STEM devalues this student’s research and more importantly, his contribution to the world through that research.  

The worth of the Virginia Rail and educational research may not be calculated in dollars, but it does not make them any less valuable.  My life is enriched by new discoveries; it is when I get caught up in the day-to-day stuff of email, administrivia, and calculating how to deal with bureaucracy that I feel trapped.  Neil Young had it right when he said, “I’m headed for the ditch.”  Who knows what will be dancing through those high reeds?  I won’t know unless I stop to look. 

Gitali: Knowledge, Wisdom, and Love

“She has had an impact on so many lives and she doesn’t even live here!”

                                                            Bridget, fellow yogi

It’s true.  Gitali never lived here in Bristol, but her presence at Bristol Yoga Studio has been significant from the moment of her arrival several years ago.  On the most surface level, it could be her expertise as a yoga teacher.  Not only does she know a rich repertoire of sequences and poses, everything from restorative to vinyasa and in between; she can also intuit the mood and tone of individuals and the class as a whole to see what is needed.  This last week, her very last class, I made an offhand comment about having a possible injury to my right foot.  Gitali worked a brief self-foot massage into our class.  As all 12 of us were twisting our toes and pressing knuckles into arches, giggling at the tickling, I marveled at her care and attention for me, and for us.  This is just a small example of who she is.  Whether we need calm or playfulness, she offers us healing energy. 

Gitali also provides wisdom.  She never attended the preachy “I know better than you” school of yoga, where yoga teachers try to fix their students.  Instead, she asks us to be attentive and responsible to ourselves.  She also asks us to consider how we are connected to one another and to the divine energy that runs through each of us, connecting us to one another, to nature, and to life itself.  Last week, she asked the class if anyone had a specific intention, and somebody said, “world peace” as the standby joke.  After we laughed a bit, Gitali talked about how she does believe in world peace, but has come to realize that it has to start in her relationships first.  When she experiences negative emotions about somebody, she asks herself how she is contributing to peace in the world if she can’t experience peace in this relationship.  That is an excellent question for all of us.  Peace isn’t some abstraction that lies within the arcane language of international treaties or documents.  It is something we can cultivate within ourselves.

Most of all, Gitali is an embodiment of love.  In her presence, I feel accepted, loved, and honored, no matter how grumpy or upset I may be feeling, no matter what mistakes I made that week, or nasty things I thought or said.  At the end of each class when Gitali says, “The beauty within me, the light within me, recognizes and honors the beauty within you, the light within you,” it is clearly and deeply meant and felt. 

Farewell, my friend.  We at BYS are going to miss you tremendously, but your love and light are with us.