beautiful

What a gorgeous day it is in Chicago. A beautiful day for being right here, right now, not for worrying about the future or mooning about the past. Right here, right now. Beauty and light... such beauty and light.

nostalgia...

Busy week at work... took on a project that unexpectedly took more time and energy, and had less help, than I had expected. I think it's finished now... or at least one phase of it is finished... enough that I can bow out of the rest of it I think without seeming to drop it in the middle.

We are supposed to be finishing up the year with our service learning projects. I don't think I can manage the two that I had planned - just one, maybe. I feel tired and the end is in sight and I just want to coast on the wind and slip sweetly into the hangar... but I've promised to create children's books about immigrant children's experiences, and a museum-quality display about the Black Panthers; I need to follow through on at least one of them.

I think the students I'd selected to do the books are not mature enough for the interviews or careful enough for piecing together the finished products, so I won't follow through on that. I'm nervous about holding the older students' attention for the Black Panther piece, but hopefully that will happen of its own accord because the material is really very compelling.

The translator I mentioned in the previous blog entry seems to be becoming a friend and has touched off other things for me... or re-awakened I should say... perhaps due to hearing him quote Persian poetry, I uploaded a new stack of my Iran photos (that's me with the flying lions at left... aka the Gate of All Nations, where all the subject nations' representatives brought their gifts to Darius on New Year's Day...) And definitely due to hearing him quote Chinese poetry, I've been thinking about all my Chinese and Japanese studies, my poetry... I've looked up my favorite poems online, of which I could only remember a few words - found them in their entirety and enjoyed that I can still read them and delight in them. I found my dear old Genji Monogatari online, with multiple modern Japanese translations side-by-side so that you can compare them, no less (you can even check which ones you want, and what commentary, and the page will reload exactly to your specifications - heh). I have thought about my thesis, and marveled that you were actually willing to read it for me, Amy n Nadine! What great friends I had and not sure I barely appreciated it at the time! Only as time passes do I realize how rare and precious those friendships are, and how little I deserved them, young and stupid as I was... I remember our trip to Cape Cod, Nadine, where I did a good chunk of proof-reading; I remember happy things from that trip (when for so long I've only thought about one negative event) - snow on the beach and stars at night, and sitting by the fire marking up my draft... I wonder where my thesis is... my Japanese books are still packed away in boxes and I sprang out of bed this morning fully intending to disinter them, but other things distracted me (such as uploading Iran pix to Flickr). I wrote Sylvia and it amused me to note the difference between this note and my previous epistle to her - it's like the Harvard student in me has been re-awakened and I used words like "epistle"... that oh-so-ironic language, with perfect grammar and elaborate vocabulary... self-mocking and showing off at the same time.

I've been hoping to make an East Coast trip this summer, though it looks relatively unlikely; that was one reason for contacting Sylvia. I have friends and/or relatives in DC, NY, Boston... and I miss the East Coast... I am trying and trying to find Chicago homelike, particularly as it's so much cheaper than back East, but if I could wave a magic wand and transport us to NYC or even Boston - job and housing of course being equal or better - I would do it, I would do it, I would do it in a nanosecond.

So I'm being nostalgic for a former life. I need to shake it off and get on with my day. But it's interesting to remember who I once was, what once engaged me and took all my time... and how I used to be, as I bragged to impress my translating friend, one of the best translators of Heian period Japanese prose in the country (maybe the world). I didn't even think of it like that at the time but it must have been true, thanks in large part to the fact that there are so few of us and that I was trained by the best. What happened to that life? I know what happened to it but... life's twists and turns are so strange, and one throws away or disregards pearls when one is young... I should have just at least finished up my Master's at Columbia... at the time I thought I just couldn't, but... I think back over all the turning points and wonder what would have happened if I'd gone another way... I don't wish that I were an academic, not at all, that life is painfully circumscribed, particularly in the field to which I would have devoted myself... but I wish I had finished my Master's and that I had finished more of the projects I had going at the time, whose fragments are also packed away in boxes that I've not opened since our 2007 move.

Well, maybe when I retire...

happy spring...

happy again... my new meds (well, new a year ago now) have really turned me into a different person... mostly i'm happy, most days - almost all days - i'm glad to be alive. Pema Chödrön says,

“I’m glad to be alive to agreeable, I’m glad to be alive to disagreeable. And I’m glad to be alive to sour and sweet and tingly and itchy, and refreshing and cold and hot and the whole thing. And it doesn’t matter that there is this voice that says I don’t like this, or I do like this, that’s fine, you know, that’s also fine, but somehow open and at home, with your body, your mind, and your world, and meditation is actually the means or, the tools that we need… It actually is that the present moment is the doorway to liberation, vastness, unobstructed quality of our mind. And we could experience the world that way.”

and just because of the meds i do begin to feel glad to be alive to different experiences, interested in what's around the corner... i know my world is still small and cramped compared to the "liberation, vastness, unobstructed quality of our mind" that i experience when i do meditate regularly (haven't been, due to the falling-asleep issue)............but i open my arms to the wind and the sunlight and i tip my head back to blue sky or rainy.... and laugh or smile and just feel glad. i love the trees blooming right now - i've taken photos - wait let me upload them...




and i love the blossoms falling so sweet and fluttery, flowing and eddying like powdery snow in the wake of cars... i love the tulips so red and the tulips falling apart... this morning i walked out in the park and i loved the birdsong and the sound of wind in the trees, the sweet smell and feel of dewy grass... spring is in full swing and summer's coming... i have so much to cover in my classes and so much joy to be able to have so much to teach.

looking ahead to the summer, i'm gonna quote (with some editing) from an email i sent to Nadine... i'm laughing as i note somewhat more anxiety and somewhat less 'glad to be alive' than what i'm expressing now... that's ok... glad to be alive to anxious and glad to be alive to peace.

"have a trip planned to Montana and Wyoming (wild beautiful country like in Brokeback Mountain) to see a bunch of cousins - but it's me and mom in the car for 10 days - what was i thinking? ? panic setting in. wondering how to fix that - but her whole trip depends on me chauffeuring. well, i'm gonna ask her how i can shorten it - there may be some days at the beginning and end where the cousins can drive her places.

i mean... i know the scenery is beautiful but... TEN DAYS???? damn...

on top of that i just accepted a job from the boss's boss's boss, writing curriculum in the summer... which wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already accepted another job writing curriculum for my own boss (the principal) and a third (well that was foisted upon me) working with an outside program to design and provide select services to specific students.

I don't know what all these jobs entail and how much of my time they'll take up, but I'm starting to worry that I won't get any summer break, and come fall I'll feel like I was at school all during my break. I'm told curriculum writing involves taking all the materials away and coming back later, not being at school all the time, but i'm suspicious. anyway i took the jobs for the sake of the serious banking of brownie points... so i think i should just focus on that and consider this summer an investment... frontload the brownie points... hopefully the investment will pay off in the long term and not just be a stupid move in a game i was bound to lose.

so i have this wyoming-montana trip lined up at the end of june/beginning of july, and a week-long queer buddhist retreat in august (same one i went to last year) and id like to get something else in, a trip to new york maybe - i'd like to see the cousins in Boston and Colin and Joel in NYC... and just be in NYC for a day or two... i miss it and i love being there when i get the chance... i've also thought about going overseas somewhere but i don't think i really have time for that... and i'd like to go somewhere with R (she is not interested in the NY-Boston trip). She can't really get any time off work for various reasons... so a quick trip to England to see our friends there is out. A quick trip to Minneapolis is more appealing to her... but that's frustrating cuz it's in driving distance but we'd have to fly because R doesn't have any time. So all this adds up in terms of time and money. I'd have to choose between my east-coast trip and our couple trip to MN, and R doesn't seem to care but I don't know if she does or not, or if I do or not ("I can spend time with you at home," she says). So anyway. Lots to think about. Lots of balancing acts... between what i want to do if i could do anything, and what's in the realm of the possible, and commitments i've made that i am reconsidering too late...

(end of email to Nadine)

so that's my news, my life, my state of mind. long post... my 800th, incidentally. yay me, yay blog. blog is 6 years old, born on May 18, 2004. Weird. May 3 is another anniversary, a good one - first contact with a friend. Recently met a new potential friend - translator of classical poetry in Persian, Latin, Chinese, etc etc... speaks every language, it seems... he knows more than i do about a lot of things, which makes it fun to learn from him but also makes me feel stupid, so i can't take too many hours of conversation with him... he also talks a lot... so you know, like any friend, good and bad mixed together. trying to make more friends here in Chicago... settle in and make it home. still doesn't feel like home and when i think about it i'd still rather be in NYC, but Chicago is so much cheaper and really has many charms, so i need to reconcile myself to being here.

babbling now.

love to all.

loss

a year ago today i said goodbye to someone very important to me. some of you know that story - some don't - no matter - now it's a year later. i am a numbers girl - i remember numbers and dates forever - and anniversaries are in my subconscious, in my bones and blood, and they bubble up and burst. often, i am confused by a wash of inexplicable emotion until i recall that it's an anniversary - sometimes of something i haven't thought of in a long time.

the first time i noticed that was on the anniversary of the death of a dear friend - those of you who knew me in college will remember that in the spring of my/our junior year, a dear friend and my grandmother both died almost within a month of each other. it kicked off a very confusing time for me, because i'd always been able to control my emotions prior to that, and suddenly, my emotions were out of control and i couldn't even parse, couldn't even understand the experience. i think at the time i formed some new counter-productive habits for reacting to feelings and for dealing with my reactions (as opposed to the old counter-productive habit of not dealing with my feelings at all), but i didn't know any better, and my one counseling session that i went to at the time was helpful but definitely insufficient.

anyway, exactly a year later i was hit with floods of grief and tears before i recalled that Jessie had died on April 13. I still remember the date though the echoes have faded with time.

9/11 was another anniversary that hit me - that first year later, i felt nameless terror as though something else horrifying was going to happen the next year on that date (most of you know that i did have close personal connections to the events of that day).

and tonight i felt a knot of things that i unraveled to find an anniversary again.

.... so much loss last year...

last spring, our dear white husky died, sometime around this time (oddly, that's a date i've forgotten). not too long afterward i took our remaining dog, the sweet collie, for a long walk along the lakeshore, admiring the beauty of the willows that were just budding out in their long golden-green swaying strands. two months later that dog had died too. bittersweet. bittersweet. good memories remain precious, no matter what, but tinged with loss, they do become bittersweet.

last weekend we took our new dog for that same walk, to enjoy the willows budding out, and the next morning he woke up lame. he is a little better today because we went back to the vet yesterday and amped up the painkillers quite a bit. but he has been disabled and whimpering all week, and until yesterday he seemed to be continually degenerating. we have been terrified of what might happen next.

so much loss. so much loss. yet my life has been blessed with so much abundance, too, for which i am grateful. and you can't have one without the other, i guess....

spring break trip to Milwaukee :)

Went Milwaukee with Miriam for a day... Just a quick dash through some of the photos...
First, we went to an amazing photography exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum... for those of you unfamiliar the museum was designed by the amazing architect Santiago Calatrava (here's a photo of the whole museum... and get this... the "wings" close at night!!!!!)

The exhibit we saw was called Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940–1959 (that link is very much worth a click)... some mid-century photographers just beginning to break the boundaries of what had until then been primarily a medium for portraits and journalism. The grainy battlefield pix from WWII inspired them to capture the movement and moments of urban life... it was really quite amazing exhibit, I wish I could transport each of you there (especially Goblinbox, I think you'd really get into it!)

Here are some pix of Miri and I playing around with the architecture and objets d'art...










Of course, even the parking garage is spectacular...




Miriam had booked massages for us for later in the day which was a brilliant idea... mine was a birthday present, thank you dearie!!! so much!!!!

While waiting for the massage time we shopped around some vintage stores in the Bayview neighborhood, Milwaukee's answer to what Williamsburg used to be like when we lived in NYC. I bought a bunch of LP's (yes, actual vinyl) for Loopy for her birthday - vinyl is apparently making a comeback among music aficionados (aficionadi?) and she's getting a turntable from Mom for her birthday (I can say all this cuz she never reads my blog, haha!)(not that it would be a very big surprise... I have to ask her what kind of turntable to get :P ) So I picked some classic records either because I know she loves them or, for most of them, because they had great cover art or an enclosed booklet that's still there, or whatever. that was a blast...

Dinner was delicious, rare tuna in a yummy salad and "Asian slaw," peanutty noodley cabbagey goodness. All this at a very down-home feeling place called Lulu Cafe.

The-e-e-e-e-n, as if it could get any better, Miriam had booked an amazing art deco hotel via Priceline... deliciously cushy beds and a DEEP WATER TUB which alone would almost have made the trip worthwhile.........

AND of course I had to indulge in my passion for ROOM SERVICE...



Room service chocolate cake = $13
Room service delight = priceless :)




The next morning after the above room-service breakfast (fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice in its own little carafe!) Miriam brought out the art supplies and I made a collage while she looked through the exhibition book she'd bought at the museum. Miriam commented that she's like my drug dealer, except for with art.




The finished piece is called "The Gaze, aka doing this project made me want to visit Cuba." (the frame for all the faces is an old Cuban building with arcades around a courtyard...)

Checked out an hour late because of the collage, happy happy happy as a clam. Drove home with my "Drive to Milwaukee Mix" on my iPod. All's right with the world.

Have some work to finish up today and Sunday, hope to enjoy Saturday THOROUGHLY with my lovey. This spring break has been delightful and restorative. The weather has gotten extremely mild and delicious... after I take the dog for a walk I'm gonna open all the windows. Welcome spring!

(added a new tag... I had tags for depression, fear, and death... now I have a tag for "happy" :) :) :) )

Happy Ostara!

A day late, just noticed it on the calendar. I remember how cool it was to find out that the root of "Easter" is "Ostara," the goddess of spring or something. Those old old things persist. Like there is a river in Iran whose name sounds sort of like "Cyrus" (in Persian), and they think maybe it was named for him but got corrupted during the centuries when people forgot that Cyrus the Great's palace and tomb are along the river... they made up mythical stories to explain the ruins...

For those of you who don't facebook (Amy! C'mon already!) here's a recent pic I took of myself with my iPhone (now my profile pic on FB). The fisheye did something good for my face somehow. Anyway. This is me now. In my classroom actually, though I don't think you can see that.

Spring is coming fitfully to Chicago, sunny 60-degree days alternating with snow and sleet... my students call it "pneumonia weather," cuz you get fooled by the midday warmth and don't wear enough clothes to be warm enough in the late afternoon and evening.

I seem to be past that depression that I discussed in the "tide in, tide out" post. I enjoy my job (although I've been a bit frazzled lately, but generally positive - and we only have a week left til spring break!). I have some added responsibilities right now (I have to do some observations and schedule peer observations for the other teachers) but so far I'm not too far behind. I don't know about observing my colleagues... how do I give them feedback without offending them... ?

Talking to Nadine pretty regularly has helped me a lot. She always reminds me to care for myself, and I always seem to need reminding. I feel lonely and needy and then she reminds me that I have what I need... it's like I think I've run out of something important and I'm panicking and then I open a cupboard door and there it is, a big box of it. Love in a box. Love I can give myself.

I got my sleep apnea machine but am still trying to catch up on my sleep - they say it can take several weeks. I'm still sleepy all the time. It's funny that Loopy and I both have one - we're like the twin Darth Vaders.

Right now we're dogsitting a little poodle who is completely adorable; Mr. Pickles (our bad dog from the pound) tries to eat it periodically, but it can stick up for itself pretty well :)

Loopy is getting tired of walking dogs and starts to feel she's wasting her life. So she is thinking about teaching at a community college or some such. She's a little depressed to be in this spot - developing a goal but not yet making any move to take a step toward it - but maybe she'll start taking steps soon and start feeling better. I had become reconciled to her doing her music blog and walking dogs - for a while I resented that I was working and she was playing with the blog, but I know she works hard with the dogs and fundamentally I just want her to be happy.

Otoh she needs health insurance and our COBRA is going to run out in the fall. So either she needs a job with health insurance or we need to buy some - at least for a few years even if the healthcare bill takes effect... which reminds me... (flipping TV on to check on the progress... big vote on the healthcare bill is today, supposedly...)

Anyway... I guess that's it for me for now... I will try to be more regular about blogging. Now that I don't do therapy, it's good to have a chance now and then to just kinda take stock of my life and what's going on... step back and see the big picture.........

tide in, tide out

depression seems to be coming back - last 10+ days. i fought it, then panicked about it ... didn't get work done, started to feel like i'm going under at school.

now remembered to accept it and just put one foot in front of the other, not make a big deal out of it, not do the headless chicken routine (either internally or externally) nor the deer in the headlights... just do my job... ok so briefly i was enthusiastic, even ecstatic, about doing my job... it's ok not to be enthusiastic, it's ok not to love it every minute, just keep doing it.

i feel insecure toward my friends, my wife. i feel anxious and harried. Saturday i collapsed into a shaking, weeping mess over an insult from a relative stranger whose opinion i don't value.

but after some deep breaths and mindfulness in a warm tub, i found my feet again and reminded myself how to get through this. just do the next doable thing. every minute take stock of where i am and what i can reasonably do. reasonably being the key word. don't try to work miracles if i only have 15 minutes. don't try to make every lesson a superstar production. there are those in administration who decided i'm wonderful; they could just as capriciously decide that i'm terrible. i have no control over that. i have control over showing up every day with some degree of preparation and doing what i am supposed to do, trying to teach my students, loving them and being constant and stable in their lives. that's all i can do and that's all i need to do. just my job.

the headless chicken and the deer in headlights are both manifestations of the desire to be rescued - the hope that being helpless will result in help - from somewhere, somehow. renouncing these two animals means taking responsibility, not looking outside myself. being mindful. and that has its own hopefulness in it... or if not hope, a sense of trust. trust in myself... that i keep going, that i survive.