Ode to My Right Arm

Ode to My Right Arm

Part I

Years ago, a motivational speaker advised that breaking habits should start with something easy 

Such as

placing one’s watch

(this was back when people used watches instead of phones to tell time)

On one’s opposite wrist.

I lasted about two hours.  It just didn’t make sense! My watch was on my right wrist

For a reason.

As a southpaw, my left arm had more important things to do. 

And that is how I have lived my life ever since.  Until a few months ago, that is.

Part II

Dear right arm:

I held you in contempt

Or maybe just neglect

Seeing that you were weaker

And less agile

Than your twin sister, the left. 

When I needed strength

Or mobility

Or balance

I chose her over you,

Even moving the computer mouse to her side. 

Writing, eating, cooking, driving, planting flowers,  cleaning bathtubs, washing windows

Unlocking doors

I chose her over you.

Brushing my hair and my teeth

Putting in my contacts

Applying makeup, taking off makeup

I chose her over you.

As a counter to these finely tuned tasks,

You got to carry my book bag, computer bag, grocery bag, and lunch bag

All at the same time. 

I ignored the signals of your distress

Until a simple yawn and stretch

Sent shooting agony

From shoulder to elbow

Radiating pain so bright

I couldn’t believe my skin stayed pale and cool to the touch.

As any child of neglect

Would righteously do

You spoke out firmly and vigorously.

So now we work together, cautiously.

You’ve got your mouse back.

You are becoming better at brushing my teeth and hair, and

I even let you drive when there’s not much traffic. 

Still haven’t moved my watch, though.

The balance still tips toward the left out of habit, but the dialogue

Has begun—

A halting conversation with frequent pauses. 

Ego versus Body: A Dialogue

Ego versus Body: A Dialogue

Do you live your life in the should realm?  As in “I should be grading my students’ papers instead of writing this blog” or “I should have a clean house like my neighbor does because if she has a husband, two kids, one foreign exchange student, two cats, a beagle, and can do it, why can’t I with my husband and cat who sleeps all the time (the cat, not the husband)? 

I have spent most of my life in this realm, and I would like to move.  You can have it, rent-free, forever. 

The dangers of should have been apparent to me for awhile now, but it is insidious, lurking around corners and leaping out to surprise me with me its knowing and judging eye, just waiting to catch me lollygagging around the bases.  On a recent long run that was shortened through circumstances described below, I realized that should, which is rooted in the normative claim of what is “correct” or “right” according to some standard—either cultural, psychological, or a bit of both—is on a first-name basis with my ego.  In fact, I’m pretty sure they have been sleeping together.  Just when I thought my ego had my best interests at heart, I realized it doesn’t care about me; it only cares about what others think about me.  It thinks that I should do what it projects others expect of me.  These aren’t real expectations on the part of others, mind you, only the ego’s interpretation. 

Like any lover who fears her partner is stepping out on her, I hired a detective, whom I will call the Witness.  Here is what she heard on this run last Sunday, as my Ego and Body duked it out.

Ego:  Let’s go 16 miles today!  If you run 16 miles today, 18 next Sunday, and then 20 the following week, you will have reached my goal of running doing a 20 miler in June! 

Body:  It looks good so far, but I haven’t done more than 13.5 miles since late April.  Plus I ran 8 miles Friday and 8 again on Saturday.

Ego: Pish-posh!  You should be able to do this just fine.  You felt amazing on both of those runs. 

Body: That’s true.  But I did drink last night, and stayed up late.  Didn’t get started until 7:20 a.m. and the sun is already bright. 

Ego: Remember that beer is all carbs and that gigantic burger was all protein!  I’m telling you, you should be able to do this, no sweat. 

Body: “No sweat?”  Have you looked at me lately?  I’m drenched and it’s only been 10 miles.  I have had to stop and get water several times already. 

Ego: C’mon now.   The sun is making you gloriously tan!  Quit moving toward the shade.  Hey, why is that guy asking you how you’re doing?

Body: Probably because my face is purple and I look like I’m moving underwater.  We need to find a bathroom.  Stomach is sending emergency signals. 

Ego:   Just have a gel and I know we can get the rest of those miles!

Body: I can’t even think about eating a chocolate gel, especially with caffeine.  Do you want me to throw up right here in front of all these kids? 

Ego: But we have to get to 16 miles!  That was our goal for today.

Body:  That was your goal.  I’m walking home, which is 2 miles away, and I’m lucky I can still walk.

Ego:  But you can pass that old grandpa dude up there who is barely moving!  C’mon now, don’t you have any pride?

Witness Analysis:

The Ego has strong ideas about what must/should take place, but is at the mercy of the capabilities of her compatriots; in this case, the Body.  This is why the Body is such a good teacher to the Ego:  the Body cannot be coerced.  Well, she can, but only to an extent.  In this case, passing the “grandpa dude” at mile 11, but then seeing him pass us at mile 12 as we were walking, was what I would call humbling, and what the Ego would call a “disaster” (her words, not mine).  In a fight to the finish, the score is: Body: Sick, Ego: Chastened.  No winners here, except that both were laughing about this and having leftover pizza soon after.      

What I’ve been reading…

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva.  If you are a fan of hard-boiled detective fiction and actively mourned the recent death of one of the best in the genre, Robert B. Parker (forgive the insouciance, but he’s Jesus to the God(s) Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett), then you will appreciate writers like DeSilva.  What makes him even better is that he’s a native Rhode Islander and former Providence Journal writer, so his take on the politics of this state feels authentic.  Rhode Islanders like to think they are special in lots of ways—as if they are the only ones who like personalized license plates and buy bread and milk at any threat of a snowstorm—but in political malfeasance, this state has few rivals (Chicago comes to mind).  Every day, there’s an aging mobster known as “Chippy” or “Whitey” who is finally going to jail or died in jail.  But I digress.  The protagonist in Rogue Island is a newspaperman with his flaws (endearing of course), an aging car he calls Secretariat, and a flair for choosing the wrong women, drinking the right beer, and getting into a fair amount of trouble investigating State House machinations.  This book came out a couple of years ago, and he has a new one called Cliff Walk that I will swipe from Nels’ bedside table when he falls asleep tonight.

Starboard Sea by Amber Dermott.   Jason Prosper is a privileged white boy trying to make it through prep school and into Princeton.  Trouble is, he’s of this milieu but doesn’t really belong there.  Sound familiar?  I am not sure we need an updated (1980’s style) version of Catcher in the Rye, and I have my doubts as to the authenticity of a middle-aged woman writing as a teenage boy, regardless of her familiarity with this world.  Holden’s voice in Catcher was so clear and smart and in pain.  In this book, Jason’s voice is not as immediate or raw, despite having experienced just as much tragedy.  To not know what happened with best friend Cal who committed suicide, or even with Aidan in the Swan Boat until the final pages, meant that the narrator himself was withholding something from us.  That distance may have served the story from a plot perspective, and I’m sure Amber Dermott agonized over that choice, but it didn’t serve my connection or understanding of Jason.  That being said, I enjoyed learning about sailing as a sport, East Coast prep school privilege, and refamiliarizing myself with 80’s culture.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  I heard Terry Gross interview Duhigg on “Fresh Air” and A.J. Jacobs name-checked him in his newest one, Drop Dead Healthy.  The book is basically about how we acquire habits as individuals, institutions, and organizations.  I found Habit useful but a bit redundant and limited.  Duhigg seems to be using a purely cognitivist approach when it comes to habit, ignoring deep sociocultural and psychological needs that lead to habits.  I like that he has a framework for changing bad habits, which is: 

1.       Identify the routine

2.       Experiment with rewards

3.       Isolate a cue (location, time, emotional state, other people, and/or immediately preceding action)

4.       Have a plan

But how do I cultivate good habits?  And how are these habits connected to my identities and deeply scripted personal and political discourses?

On another literary note, my parents are getting ready to downsize and my mom sent me some of my childhood favorites, most of which were her childhood favorites.  I dipped back into Little Women and sat mesmerized for an hour reading the last chapters of the book.  I won’t reread the whole thing—it’s a bit preachy for me--but do plan to reread the sequel Little Men, which I loved.  In Alcott’s world, boys may act worse but are forgiven more easily, so there is less preachiness.  Makes me want to go back to Concord…

Little Women

Little Men

Saratoga Trunk

Queenie Peavey

True Grit

Black Beauty

Hans Brinker (or the Silver Skates)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Bambi

A Wrinkle in Time

The Incredible Journey

My summer reading will definitely include many of these.  I wonder how these will feel to me as an adult?  The animal books (Black Beauty, Bambi, The Incredible Journey) were often painful to read, so I’m not sure I want to revisit them, but maybe I should anyway.

Ahimsa: Taking My Own Ripe Journey

The eight yamas and niyamas are a set of yogic guidelines that are similar in purpose to Christianity’s Ten Commandments.  Both serve as a set of rules or laws that support the functioning of relationships and society through tasking the individual to act in certain ways.  However, the yamas and niyamas are not undergirded by the threat of “Thou shalt not…” with the implication being “Or else!”  There is nobody to be afraid of with these restraints, whereas the Ten Commandments are based on the fear of God’s—and by extension, society’s—wrath. 

This is a good thing, because if ahimsa, which is often translated to “nonviolence,” were an actual law, I would be on Death Row.    I violate it multiple times a day toward myself, hopefully less often toward others.  For me, this translates into the fear of not being good enough and not doing enough.  One result is that I have become a slave to my planner and email inbox.   Deborah Adele talks about this very thing: “I had created a violent inner world of pushing, overdoing and under-sleeping…” which leads to this:  “…how we treat ourselves is in truth how we treat those around us.  If you are a taskmaster with yourself, others will feel your whip.” 

I believe that these pressures are not just personality traits that she and I share, but are also deeply political.  The emotions I feel are partially internal, but they are also external, resulting from gendered and cultural forces outside myself.  For example, there is the guilt for not meeting certain expectations for professional women, like being good at my job, having a clean house, and being nice, all on the same day.  That pressure, and then the subsequent anxiety, anger, and guilt at not living up to some invisible, unreachable standard, are socially driven.  Thus, that violence I commit against myself, and subsequently others as I take the role of stern taskmaster, is fed upon by socially constructed cues about what it means to be a woman, a teacher educator, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend. 

Ahimsa, and other elements of yoga practice, provides a counternarrative to these pressures.  The idea that I am okay—not just okay, even, but perfect--just the way I am, is radical in western thought.  How can I be perfect when I forgot to shave my legs, dirty dishes are in the sink, and there are 114 unanswered messages in my inbox?  Self-acceptance feels Stuart Smalley-ish:  “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”  This seems faintly ridiculous because our culture provides archetypes of perfect women, wives, mothers, etc., and it is clear that I most certainly am not “good enough.” Instead, yoga tells me that the external does not matter; that I am indeed a worthy human being, just like everyone else.

Running and yoga are good lessons in ahimsa, as my expectations are necessarily limited by my physical body.  My lungs, heart, and legs can only be taxed so far, so fast.  My hips and hamstrings will only stretch to a certain point.  Wise coaches and yoga teachers tell me to listen to my body.  This listening has become part of my running and yoga practice, and as a result, I have been able to push my own perceived boundaries in unexpected ways.

If I am to practice ahimsa, this acceptance of my physical boundaries will necessarily carry over to the rest of my life by recognizing and respecting my personal and professional boundaries as well.  I have a job in which, as one colleague said, there is no end.  I could work 24 hours a day, and there would still be emails to answer, proposals to write, papers to grade, classes to plan, ideas to consider, students to support, colleagues to share.  This is what drew me to this work in the first place:  it requires engagement of my mind and my heart.  I cannot imagine a better fit for my personality than this profession. 

In order to have the energy to do my life’s work, then, it seems I must try to understand and appreciate all that is mine to do, and all that is others’ to do.   One of the ways I violate ahimsa is that I try to fix things for people instead of letting them figure it out for themselves.  Deborah Adele suggests that being a fixer and worrier is a violation of ahimsa, because when we worry about others, we imply that they are not capable of, as one of my student teachers said, “taking their own ripe journey.”  When I consciously withdraw my worries and fears on behalf of others, I have more positive energy to give to the world.  

In this way, ahimsa is both personal and political.  It is personal, because it means living with integrity through recognizing and respecting my own boundaries.  It is also political in that it asks me to resist gendered and classed pressures that are implicit and explicit in this culture. However, ahimsa does not require that I withdraw from the world; just that I make deliberate, thoughtful, and compassionate choices.   It is both freeing and frightening to step outside the familiar zone governed by fear and judgment.  Like everything, this will be a nonlinear, recursive process, in which I get it right sometimes, and fail miserably at other times.  I may not have Stuart Smalley’s confidence, but at least I can get off my own personal Death Row.    

A Runner's Valentine

This year, I knew I would be at a conference for my class that was scheduled to meet from 4-6 p.m. on Valentine’s Day.  I asked a colleague to cover for me, and she said, “Sorry, I can’t.  My husband is a romantic and I know he will have made wonderful plans for us!” 

You would think that she was a newlywed in the first throes of early love.  But no, she has been married for many years and has a grandchild in high school.  I began thinking about the role of romance in my own marriage.  We will be married 18 years in June, and the romance, as traditionally constructed, has been gone for awhile now.  My birthday is within a few days of Valentine’s Day, and Nels has been known to ask, “Do I have to buy a Valentine’s Day card too?”  If he has to ask, there can be only one answer.  On a Valentine’s Day a long time ago, I shamed him into buying me flowers, and it was just all wrong.  Instead of being a gesture of love, it was a gesture of guilt based on my culturally constructed feeling that flowers=romance=love.

Ironically, I have received the most beautiful flower arrangements from him for my last few birthdays, even when he is out of town, as he was last week.  This is from a guy whose normal idea of a gift for me (and anyone else) is from the clearance rack at Marshall’s.  The bargain is part of the narrative of gift-buying for him. 

Over the years, my ideas about romance have changed.  I love the pure beauty and riotous scents that my birthday flowers bring to our late-winter, scratchy-heat home.  Not only are they an expression of Nels’ recognition and appreciation of what I enjoy, but they contain the early promise of spring.

 However, the real romance occurs not in a fancy restaurant or B&B, but on the East Bay Bike Path.  When we are running, we can talk about all the easy and hard things we are experiencing as individuals and together.  For some reason, hard truths are more palatable while running; maybe because we are not looking at each other, or because we are both engaged in physical effort, or because we are engaged in a shared experience even as we are talking about something potentially polarizing. 

In addition to these potentially difficult conversations, though, there is also the encouragement Nels provides for me as a runner.  He can compute numbers in his head (I love to test his actuarial skills by throwing out random equations about money or running times) and his newest calculation indicates that it is possible for me to run a BQ (Boston Qualifier) in my late 40’s.  “All you have to do is get down to 3:45!”  he enthuses.  I ran my last marathon in 4:26.  I have my doubts, but he does not.

For me, the ultimate in romance is someone who believes in me more than I do myself.  So, no, honey, you never, ever, have to buy me another Valentine’s Day card.  I love you. 

Still Running?

“Still running?” my mom asked me during a recent phone conversation.  My first reaction was the exasperated, “Of course.  Why wouldn’t I be?”  But then I realized that I haven’t been a runner all that long.  Four years almost exactly, in fact.   My mom has known me as a non-runner for a lot longer than she has known me as a runner. 

I did a little running during high school and college, mostly to keep my weight down.  At IU, I would jog at the HPER indoor track with my Walkman on, singing to Led Zeppelin and Van Halen loudly and off-key. After graduating, my workouts were intermittent.  I would get a gym membership for awhile and then let it lapse when I got bored with working out on machines.

When Nels and I moved into our first house, I started my almost-daily walks around the neighborhood.  Nels would join me sometimes, and we developed an hour-long route in which we managed to pass all the houses with outdoor cats and see how many we could pet.  There were regulars who trotted down their driveways as soon as they saw us.  Others regarded us with wary disdain. 

We established another walking route when we moved to Rhode Island in 2005 and made some new feline friends.  Because I kept a brisk pace for an hour 5-6 days a week, I considered myself reasonably fit.  My weight stayed stable for the most part, and I assumed that my lifelong lack of speed, agility, and flexibility meant that walking was all I would ever do.  It never, ever occurred to me to run. 

That changed after a visit back to Indiana for Christmas in late 2006.  We had a short layover in the Philadelphia airport and had to run from one terminal to another.  I remember trotting along the horizontal escalator, lugging my giant backpack, just to see the plane pulling away.  For the next hour, I coughed uncontrollably and couldn’t catch my breath.  We sat in white rocking chairs in the middle of the terminal as I hacked and wheezed, trying not to call too much attention to myself. 

“What’s wrong with me?”  I whispered hoarsely to Nels, between sips of water.

“You’re not in shape,” he said.

“WHAT?”  I thought.  Luckily for him, I couldn’t muster the breath to cuss him out.  “Of course I am in shape.  I walk almost every day!” I said to myself. 

Slowly, slowly, as he ate breakfast and I continued to gag, I realized he wasn’t insulting me.  He was telling the truth. 

So I started running, and he joined me.

We started to run sections of our former walking route, carefully rationing the running parts to be downhill or at least level.  At one point, Nels got injured, but I kept going, and decided to enter a 5K race in Colt State Park that summer.  I looked at training plans online and bought a real running watch.  Much to my dismay, when I timed my first mile at the local high school track, it was over 12 minutes.  For that entire spring, I alternated running days and walking days, finally running 3.5 miles in 40:30.  I wanted to make sure I could run at least that far before doing 3.1 miles in public.

The race was on a balmy June evening.  I was scared.  Would I come in last?  Would people make fun of how slow I was?  When I pulled in to the parking lot, it was reassuring to see kids and dogs, as well as runners of various shapes and sizes.  I had never realized that there would be other runners like me.  Real runners, especially those who entered races, were skinny people with ropy muscles, I had thought.

I finished the race in 33:58, faster than expected given my practice times.  I didn’t come in last, either.  My grin lasted for a week.       

I ran my last marathon at a faster pace than that first 5K, but nothing has surpassed it as far as joy and pride.  That’s when I became a runner, and I haven’t stopped since. Luckily for me, long distance running does not require speed, agility, flexibility, a skinny frame or ropy muscles. It simply requires health, perseverance, and listening to my body. 

For me, running is not a seasonal occupation, nor is a certain race on my bucket list.  Running is now part of my lifestyle, part of my identity, and part of my marriage.  So, yes, Mom, I am still running. 

Eggeman Road

My parents still live in the same house in Fort Wayne in which they raised me.  There is a familiarity to the house and the neighborhood, but everything else has changed. 

Cornfields, pastures, and narrow country roads have given way to homes surrounded by cement roads, strip malls, bigger schools, parks, trails, stoplights, and churches.  Peace Church, where I was confirmed and then married, used to be the only church in the area.  Now, including Peace, there is a Lutheran church, a giant Catholic church with attached school, and three different Baptist churches all within two miles of each other.  As I ran the path alongside the roads that I used to see outside the school bus window, I was struck by several things:  some homes looked just the same in my memory; distances seemed far shorter, and many changes were marked by prosperity, Midwestern style.  Big homes with three-car garages and lots of acreage. 

Eggeman Road connects Covington Road with Aboite Center. When I used to ride the school bus (always known as Bus 10), it was marked by beat-up looking farmhouses and pastures marked by sagging fences.  There was a girl who lived in a faded green house with dark green trim who always sat by herself.  We refused to sit by her because she smelled as if she didn’t bathe regularly and disappeared into the special education classes once we got to the school.  My feelings toward this girl were marked by disgust and fear.  I dreaded when the bus was crowded and that she might sit in my seat—as if her smell or disability would rub off on me.  As I think back on those times, it is her isolation, the turning her back on the rest of us and looking out the window, that stands out to me.  And shame that I could be so mean.

Ironically, I often isolated during this time in my life as well.  I enjoyed the bus ride to school, because I could often sit alone and look out the windows and dream.  Who lived in those big houses in Covington Lakes?  Did they have kids?  Horses?  Did they swim in the pond in the summer and skate on it in winter?  How about the large house off Covington Road owned by a famous Fort Wayne family?  Did they really have their own zoo?  I judged myself on the axis of those whom I thought had it better, like these folks, and those who had it worse, like the kids who lived on narrow, graveled Eggeman Road. 

Eggeman Road also provided moments of fear and hilarity.  One time, George, our bus driver, got stuck in the snow by the green farmhouse.  He couldn’t get us out at first so called for another bus.  After waiting for about 30 minutes, the other bus pulled up just as George rocked us out of the ditch. 

George was a retired farmer with a nimbus of white hair surrounding his bald head and old man’s potbelly.  He wore a gray bus driver’s uniform and was not afraid to stop the bus and walk menacingly down the aisle if he sensed some misbehavior going on.  I felt safe, cared for, and even a little afraid when he would threaten to throw a kid off the bus who was being mean to somebody else.  He also cleaned up the bus when somebody got sick.  On the way home one day, Jimmy Ayres threw up in the hump seat, or the seat fourth from the back that was directly over the wheel well.  I was sitting across from him, and it was evident that Jimmy had had corn for lunch.  George gently escorted Jimmy off the bus, cleaned him up, and brought out the ammonia solution with a distinct smell that I will forever associate with school restrooms and buses.  Jimmy was still crying with the shame of it and we teased him for weeks after that (hiding it from George, of course).  By mutual and unspoken consent, nobody sat in that seat for a long, long time, as it became known as the “throw up seat.” 

George’s major claim to fame is that every Halloween he bought a box of giant Hershey bars and gave each of us one.  It was a huge treat to swing off the bus, grab a bar, and say, “thanks, George.”  It feels disrespectful to me now that we, even in kindergarten, called this man by his first name. 

Somewhere around middle school, Bus 10 gave way to a bigger bus with a flat front and higher number that I could never remember.  The route changed, and eventually I escaped the indignity of riding the bus and got rides from my neighbor Lisa, who drove a tiny Honda and was partial to Phil Collins and James Taylor on the tape deck.

Eggeman Road is now paved, and the green farmhouse where that girl lived is gone.  As I ran by on the sidewalk that never existed before, I thought I saw the driveway going back into some gnarled brush, but am not sure.  Eggeman has become an upscale address with stately brick homes sitting far back from the road, protected by iron gates.  It is a different place.  I no longer am envious of the people who live in those kinds of homes, and my wonderings have changed:  what happened to the girl and her family? What is the significance of all these homes replacing fields and pastures?  Why does southwest Allen County repel me as I run by the churches, showy homes, and endless pavement?  Why does it attract me when I talk to the people who go to Peace and the Y? 

If I could change anything at all about who I was then (and who I am now), it would be to appreciate what I have and not wish for something that seems to be better.  Growing up in Bittersweet or Covington Lakes or Devil’s Hollow seemed romantic and exciting, but Covington Knolls provided nights sleeping in the backyard, neighborhood games of Kick of the Can, and playing in the cemetery across the street.  Who could ask for anything more?