Mining Nuggets

Just in ... hot off the press

From MoveOn:

Pass it on ...

How the writing is going

Quote of the day:

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. Oscar Wilde

Thank you, Winston!

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Looking back and thinking forward

A letter to my blog

Dear Blog,

While walking with Gilad down by Valley Green this afternoon, I thought about so many things. We walked and climbed mostly in silence, finding a brisk rhythm and only stopping for awhile to throw left over bread from the weekend to the ducks and geese swimming in the river. It is one of the aspects of our relationship that I love. Our ability as mother and son to be together in silence. It gives me time to clear my head and deepen reflection, for even as he is quiet, he is surely and steadily at my side, part of my past, future and present, having passed through my womb and out into the world, now an independent young man.

My thoughts wandered as we walked. They came to rest upon you, Blog. And I got to thinking about how I used to write to you, and how times have changed. It seemed as if in the beginning when I discovered blogging, I would write about all sorts of difficult and uncomfortable feelings. Lately, even though I still open up to you, I find that I am more guarded. There are so many personal and very private emotions that I do not share with you as readily as I used to when we first started out together. I miss that a lot, for it is quite different from writing personal reflections in a private journal. Sharing myself publicly with others bearing witness was as exciting as could be. So much of my inner life, kept underground and alone for so many years suddenly became open and manageable. You were so good for me, Blog. I am grateful for that experience. I wanted to tell you that.

It is not that I feel despondent or disillusioned. Our relationship has changed. That's all. I still need you, Blog:

• To keep in touch with the world out there.
• Because I believe in community of any kind. I enjoy being a part of this Internet-land. Sometimes, it still feels a bit like magic.
• It keeps me feeling young, connected, savvy, and part of something bigger than myself.
• You give me something to look forward to.
• You allow me to laugh, wonder in awe, dance, express, express, express, and, even,  weep.
• You are available morning, noon and night.
• You give me permission to play!

In any case, Blog, I just really wanted to write and tell you that you are dear to me and important in my life. Even if I write less often, or not as personally from time to time, don't worry. I need you to bear witness with me even though my emotional status has shifted a little. I thought of you in the afternoon sun this afternoon, walking side by side with my son. And it felt solid and good.

Thank you, Blog.

I wrap my Cyber arms around you.

And go out into the late afternoon quietly, smiling to myself in satisfaction knowing you will be right here as I glance back over my shoulder.

Love,

Tamarika.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Festschrift

Picking up the pace (Update)

Quote of the day:

Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still. Barbara Kingsolver

The challenge now is to take on all the work that awaits me and not lose the new joyous attitude I have found so recently.

Update:

Well, my spirits are uplifted indeed! Karl Rove resigns end of August? The brain is going ... going ... gone ...

Who will dance with me in the streets? My tambourine is in hand ... smile on my lips ... twinkle in my eye ... a light shines (ever so dimly) at the end (?) of this horror story ...

When I was 34

My son is visiting for a week and we have much to catch up on. Walks in the park, listening to his new compositions, learning about the pulse in his music as he composes his new melodies, and remembering his childhood together. He has questions for me and much to tell me about how he is feeling and what he is doing with his life. He is even allowing me to buy him some gifts, so I am ecstatic!

The other evening he wanted to see photographs of what I looked like at age 34 - his current age. Here is one:

Here is another:

Both of us gasped in amazement. "Wow!" he said out loud, and exclaimed in Hebrew, "You were shafa [good looking]." I stared at the pictures through his eyes remembering those times 24 years ago when he was ten and I was at my peak of searching for love. That was a challenging period in my life. He and I have surely survived, somewhat, somehow ...

As we reminisced, I couldn't help but wonder, wistfully, how I have come to look like this:

Of course, to be sure, I am not as anxious and full of angst as I was in those days. I think I even feel safe, in the way that Tess commented about the other day. But, safe shmafe, it cannot be healthy in the long run. I decided to print out this photo where I can see it daily, since Marion and I recently made a pact together that over the next two years we are going to drop all that weight we have gained (she has much less to lose than me). We are just not going to take it with us into our sixties!

Looking for love in all the wrong places

Femme fatale ...

 

... is one of those labels assigned to me a long time ago. Recently, I was dismayed when I was called that again. For awhile I was silent and then I even tried to defend myself. But soon gave it up. I have spent so much of my life trying to disprove theories, myths and labels that I was given. Femme fatale is just one of them. Lately, for reasons I will not go into here, the phrase repeats itself in my mind. A sure sign that I need to explore this more in depth, and uncover what it means for me.

Since I was a young woman starting to realize my sexuality, I was needy for acknowledgment and validation, and would gratefully go with anyone who would have me, always incredulous that any one could love someone like me. Writing these words renders me immediately vulnerable. What exposure! It would be better for my self image if only I had considered myself a femme fatale. At least it would mean I thought of myself as sexy and dangerous, not pathetic. Marrying a number of times does not mean that I was attractive to men. It meant that I was looking for love in all the wrong places.

It is also interesting for me to reflect that the same people who assigned me that label, also taught me that a woman's self worth is through her sex appeal. It was such a relief for me to break down those myths and re-socialize myself as a woman, even though it took me until I was well into my forties to understand all that. Indeed, I still struggle with those notions, especially as I age and fear becoming invisible. I have to admit that it was exhausting always trying to be sexually acceptable, for I have never been thin or blond or any of those stereotypes that go with what the dominant culture thinks of as attractive.

And so, I must conclude that people who labeled me femme fatale, must have been insecure about their own sexuality. How could they not be in our cut throat Patriarchal system? Indeed, it had nothing to do with who I am or how I perceive myself. Women are our own worst enemies. If only we would stop wasting time calling each other names and competing for the men in our lives. If only we would, rather, band together interdependently with those men out there. Then, perhaps, we could change all these notions and myths about self-worth and attractiveness, develop our sensuality without shame, and love one another right now.

The only regret that I have is realizing all this at age 58. It is almost as if all that time has been wasted on senseless misery and pain. I hope it is not too late to enjoy my sensuality and sexual worth, without binding my mind to ancient, meaningless labels, even as I enter the gates to the senior realm.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Four years ago; & The personality of politics

My morning greeter

Ada Mae - today

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: It's party time

Distraction

Logging into Facebook this morning, I saw that Alex Halavais had asked a question:

Any way (short of major drugs) to stop being so easily distracted and get my #*@($ writing done?

At first I laughed out loud. And then I experienced that support group type of warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with being understood. I replied immediately, my answer spilling out faster than I could type:

grrr ... *tell* me about it! I wanna know how, too ... as well ... also ...

I lit my candle and incense, switched on the little water fountain that tinkles gently in my study, turned on the CD player to hear The Passport Series, a collection of music put together as a gift for me by my friend Joe-From-Philly, back in those old passport-panic days, and proceeded to water the plants.

While I was watering the plants on the patio and in the living room I could hear the Jays screaming and squawking, probably announcing the food I had just poured into the feeders by the old oak tree outside our window. A slight breeze played with the leaves at the top of the trees in the woods and sunshine filtered through. A beautiful day to be sure. "Perhaps I could take a walk by the Wissahickon after I get done with the plants," I thought to myself. I opened all the doors and windows to allow the cool air to blow through the apartment, and realized I was still thinking about Halavais' question. A mischievous smile curled into my lips as I imagined sitting at the computer to write a post about distractions.

"What a great way to answer the question," I thought. How comforting to realize that it is plaguing other people out there. Bend towards, become it, drown myself in distraction, wallow in it, soak it into my skin, brain, soul, burning eyes, and down to my very newly painted toes. Experience the distraction! Fully, openly, completely and without fear. Recognize all its forms and sensations. Its callous cruelty, beauty, the way distraction becomes fun, how it causes shame and guilt to seep into the soul. To become acquainted with its insidious nature as it creeps around the psyche squeezing my brain with its dis-tractable tentacles. Examine its purpose, understand the importance of distraction for me, specifically for me.

I sat down in front of the computer and cast my eyes down to the piles of books strewn around my feet waiting to be used for the literature review I had just started working on before I clicked over to Facebook. I felt the guilt sensation: a kind of sickness in the pit of my stomach, emptiness in the cavity below my rib cage, eyes prickling on the verge of full scale burning. I sat with the discomfort realizing that this uncomfortable feeling had almost become like a friend to me. "Hm ...," I thought. "So, I like to feel guilty. It is familiar, eh?" This time when I looked down at the books on the floor I breathed deeply, a sigh loudly escaping my lips, and relaxed.

Distracted again, I checked out when Message in a Bottle would be playing on television later today, because I had been interrupted trying to catch it on some channel or other yesterday just before friends came over for dinner. It was not a particularly spectacular movie but it had just become interesting when I had to turn it off. Okay. Now distractions are arriving even as I try to examine them. I am being distracted with distractions. The situation is chronic. Dire!

Or, perhaps, it is just that it is summer. My nineteen years of full-time work and study, writing and presenting has finally caught up with me and I had a particularly good summer this year. Maybe I just caught a play bug and want to play more and more. Perhaps distraction has nothing to do with guilt and shame and it is just that fun is more appealing. That is it! I just want to have fun.

And yet, I have been collecting books and articles on the topic for my next book for close to thirteen years now. It is a subject near and dear to my heart. A publisher, whose editor understands the importance of what I have to say, is interested, really interested. Contract in hand and deadline beckons. I think about how exciting it is when I get into the writing groove and enjoy watching the words flow up and out of the brain, through my fingers and onto the screen. Ah, so writing gives me pleasure?

Distraction = guilt and shame. Writing = pleasure. A picture is forming.

It occurs to me that distraction feels out of control. It leaves me without a choice. It takes me away from what I want to do, what I enjoy doing, that which gives me pleasure. I do not choose to be distracted. It happens to me. It is not that I write awhile and then stretch and say to myself, "Ah, that was a good writing session. Now I think I will do thus and such," and then do it with a relaxed and happy feeling. It is more like, suddenly I desperately need to arrange the photos in my photo album, check out when the latest movies are being released, or just have to see if FP has invited me to dance on Facebook ... [Hold it! I think he just did!] And then, as I follow the uncontrollable distraction, guilt and shame creeps and seeps bringing on the blues, feelings of worthlessness and incompetence, angst, and, even, sometimes ... panic.

If only I could let go of needing to feel bad about myself, I might be able to choose to take all kinds of pleasurable breaks that would, thus, enhance further the joy of writing - releasing myself from the burdensome feelings I have created for myself. That is, writing is a chore and not a pleasure.

Having become almost mesmerized by thinking about all of this, I suddenly realize:

Theorizing about distraction is itself a form of distraction.

And now, enough. I really must go and find something to eat ...

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: The stand I will take

Focus on our newest product

This just in from Marion ...

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Virginia, I become you

Internal ethnography

Well at least my study looks like writing is happening here. Books and articles are strewn all over the floor and post-it notes with bits and pieces scribbled all over them lie around the carpet. Whenever a thought crosses my mind, or someone says something interesting I write it down. For example over sashimi and sake last night, in our favorite crowded Japanese restaurant, Tom and I were discussing the concept of internal ethnography, a term he created for me about a year ago. He described it again last night as, "Making a deliberate, detailed account of our inner feelings ... what academics [he was speaking for himself at this point - not about all academics] might call internal ethnography." I wrote it down on a napkin as he was talking. He had discussed it with colleagues in Paris last week while sharing with them what I do in my work. Our conversation about it had started while walking the Wissahickon yesterday morning. He had discovered that some people believe that external forces are to blame while others, very few, are willing to take account of their inner feelings and make connections about how those affect their interactions with others. Almost like two different belief systems, life attitudes, ways of viewing the world or, even, solving problems. I noted our discussion in my brain as we walked, holding onto its memory until we reached home and I could write it up in my journal.

People say the most interesting things. I think I have developed an inner third ear over the years. One that only hears interesting, challenging, humorous, mind-blasting snippets. Sometimes I spin around, do a double-take or focus in, when I hear a slight comment that no one else has noticed. And very often those pieces of seemingly unimportant remarks contain within them pearls of wisdom, keys to a person's soul, or cries for help that would otherwise go unheard.

Here's a post-it I found attached to a book I have recently been asked to review, called Unsmiling Faces: How Preschools Can Heal. I must have written on this particular post-it two or three years ago, perhaps while attending some workshop or other on behavior management or discipline or something. It reads:

... always the troubled kids that I loved the most. Most teachers hate those kind of kids because they feel so out of control - it's not that they hate them as much as they feel uncomfortable and out of control - just don't know what to do with them ...

Writing is not just about sitting at the computer tap-tapping at the keys. It is all about listening, observing, thinking, watching, talking, holding still, being silent, imagining, wondering. It accompanies me in the shower, through my breathing exercises, on the treadmill, walking through the town, sitting by the sea, in my dreams, reading other writings, poetry, articles, books, when I am watching movies, all day and most of my night.

Talking of internal ethnography, I love this saying I found about twenty years ago. It accompanies me through my work, and I share it with all who work with children and families. I am sure you have probably seen it somewhere. You see, it is not about those people out there making our lives a misery, or doing stuff to us. It is related to the connections we make with our own inner feelings and the way we interact with others:

To ponder by Haim Ginott

I've come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I have a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated and a child humanized or dehumanized

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: It's my pleasure