Dottie

 My mother-in-law passed away about a month ago. I wrote about her in summer institute, right after her passing,  but now I think I want to share here what I wrote.
Here's a photo of her with my children (and one grandchild!) taken with her about a week before she passed.She doesn't look much like the woman in my writing. I hadn't realized, until I was helping to write the life sketch and watched a DVD my daughter had made of Dottie three years ago, how much she had changed from the woman I remember for most of my life--certainly all my adult life.

Here's what I wrote:

Sometimes you just get used to a person's clothing. That's what they wear, what they are. And then, at odd moments, you realize that the clothing is as much a part of them as their laugh or their voice. Dottie always wore bright clothes. And not just bright in color but large bright patterns, too. In the 70s, she wore psychedelic prints--like modern art paintings in colors that shocked the eye to be next to each other: fuschia and chartreuse and mustard and lime and violet. She loved to laugh, to feed people, to give parties. The bright colors seem to reflect her approach to life: full and vibrant.

Dottie was a large woman, so you'd think that she would wear tame colors. But she said that if she was going to be large, she was going to be noticeable at it. And she was. She often changed her hair color--red, black, and then orange for a while when she tried to bleach the black out. Whatever she did, though, she did with flash.

Most of her nine children inherited Dottie's love of color. My husband, for instance, thinks nothing of wearing bright red or yellow shirts. He has always looked for and purchased bright orange swim trunks. Although they make him easy to spot on the beach or in the water, most of us wouldn't pick that color once, let alone for decades. David's sisters wear bright colors and also large, chunky jewelry designed to call attention to the wearer.

When I was pregnant with one of my own children, Dottie gave me a pantsuit--maternity top and bottom--in a bold red plaid. I thanked her, and tried to keep my face impassive. I didn't think I could wear it. After all, I was already as big as a house, a barn, practically. This would just draw attention to it, right? I tried it on. Oh my. I couldn't wear it. No way. I loved Dottie, and I knew it hurt her that I wouldn't wear the outfit, but I just couldn’t.

I want to live life with Dottie’s enthusiasm, with her awareness of herself and her acceptance of that self--but I hope I do it without the bold-colored clothes.

(optical) illusions

What seems to be and what actually is: two different things.
Take this photo for instance.

These are three of my grand-daughters. It looks like they are playing in snow. Actually, this is Arizona in spring--and all that white is from the trees. Not snow at all (although the youngest kept saying, "Look at all this snow!").
Sometimes we get tricked by other illusions in life, too. People who seem to have it all together are really falling apart inside. Homes that look like the pages in a magazine may be (underneath the surface) dysfunctional and unhappy. What seems like success may actually be something else altogether, at least for a specific person.
Looking just at what seems to be, at the surface, is easy; looking more deeply is hard. It takes time. It takes commitment. And our lives are so fast-paced that such time and commitment aren't easy to come by. Besides that, most of us try to make the appearance be what we want people to believe--we don't want people to know the underneath. That makes seeing what is even harder.
I don't know why I'm writing this today. Maybe just an idea that, once again, slowing down and paying attention to people is what matters in life. More than all the surfaces and speed.

Recording words. . . with ink

I recently attended a professional conference. In one of the last sessions, even though the speaker was interesting, my attention was drawn to a young woman sitting one row ahead of me and a few seats to the right.

She is young, probably mid-twenties. Her long brown hair is pulled up in a pony with a black stretchy elastic. Small gold hoops thread through her ears. Large glasses with red frames are perched about half-way down her nose so that she can both look through them and over them. She has a large journal on her lap--about 14 inches tall and 9-10 inches wide--with a black fabric cover and a red binding. (I'm beginning to think the glasses, outfit, and journal are selected for the pleasing color coordination!).

Instead of filling a page at a time, she writes across the two-page spread, words running down into the center seam and then rising out again onto the facing page. She doesn't write ON the line, but slightly above so that all the rows of writing seem to float between the lines printed on the page. With a pen of fine point blue ink, she writes very neatly. And constantly. I mean it. Her hand rarely stops!

As she writes, she keeps her head up. Her eyes glance down at the page from time to time, but she keeps her head up, facing the speaker. And all the while she wears a slight smile, as though the act of sitting in this large hall and writing every word (it has to be every word being said--either that or she's composing a novel in the midst of all of this) is a pleasant experience she wants to savor. That's the look. Enjoyment savored.

While I've watched, she has filled almost two pages with text--which means four large pages. So much writing! I can't imagine that it is all about the session, especially when I look at my sparse notes (okay--yes I have been a little distracted by the puzzle of this woman writing constantly and with such pleasure in front of me, but still!). What is she writing? I am writing notes. She is writing talk. Content. The Great American Novel. I don't know. But I wonder. And, when the session ends and I sit forward to get a peek--maybe I can get a better sense of what she is writing--I see . . . shorthand! What young person knows shorthand today? She is making a transcript? I can't fathom it, and yet it fascinates me. This anachronism. I have to think about the implications.

As I wander away, I think about how I am aware that I walk by surveillance cameras many times a day. My car gets pictures taken of it as I drive through stop lights. It's possible that someone with a smart phone will take a photo or movie of me doing something when I am unaware that I am being recorded. And yet, I've come to pretty much accept these aspects of modern life. What puzzles me is my wonderment at having words recorded in this traditional way. Somehow, it seems more intimate. Why is that?

mixed (media) messages

I saw this sign:

I guess we live in a world that always sends mixed messages. But this sign made me think about the ways we use both digital writing and hand writing, both in our lives and in our classrooms. I started to wonder if there are benefits to handwriting--even though my students often resist it since word processing is so much faster (one of its benefits). I went online (of course) and found this:

In the segment titled “This or That? Longevity Boosters,” Dr. Oz asked what is better, “typing or writing by hand?”In the segment, he said, “Writing by hand gives your brain a workout and reduces incidents of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s.” He went on to say that “…there was a big study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience that said writing is associated with improvements in memory compared to typing.” on this site.

Maybe we should do some of both???

This I believe

I sometimes give the "This I Believe" prompt to my students. Here is one of my drafts in response to that prompt, with a belief I've been thinking about a lot lately:

I believe in the power of human contact: a hug, a handsqueeze, a stroke.

In the night, when I am wakeful, worried about family or friends, my husband's stroke on my head or shoulder tells me he's aware of me and my needs.

When a friend gets the news--after a year of battling her husband's cancer, through repeated series of chemo and surgeries and medications--and after being told just three months earlier that--MIRACLE--all four stage 4 cancers were in remission--that he is now filled with incurable cancers in every part of his body and she must tell her daughter who is away at college--I can hold her hand. It isn't a cure, but it's something.

When my grandmother stepped off the plane, I could see the signs of trauma. Her caregiver had threatened her and locked her in her room, had abused her verbally. She walked to my mother and me, and the three of us embraced. Just stood there and held each other. I could feel healing begin.

Touch matters. Babies die without it. We all do, a little.

nerdy? reading???

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this poster. When I was growing up, summer vacations, to me, meant unlimited time to read. No school to interfere. But in summer, my mother would say--multiple times a day--"Go outside! Don't stay indoors all the time." I know she meant to go outside and do something physical. But I really resented the constraints that such activities made on my reading time. For me, summer meant reading.
So, when she wasn't watching, I stashed books outside or stuck them under my sweatshirt (sorry, raised in Alaska, we wore jackets even in summer) and found places in the woods either on the side or back of my house to sit, my back against a tree trunk, and read. There I was unlikely to be disturbed. It was heaven.  I remember the sounds of birds and breeze accompanying my reading; I remember finishing a book and then looking up at the sky through birch leaves and just thinking about the story and the people I had just experienced through the pages of the book.
I may have been a nerdy girl, but I look back on those days of reading in the trees as idyllic.

Taking a mind vacation

My students are anxious. The semester's end is coming soon and they have lots to do, not just for my class. I understand anxious. I feel it, too.

When too many things demand my attention: home, family, church, school, friends.
When time is spread thin between important needs and and more important needs.
When the to-do list carries over onto the back or (worse) another page.
When I don't get to choose between good, better, best, but must simply do what's in front of me.
When sleeping is a dream and breathing seems impossible.

When that anxious feeling starts to overwhelm, I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. And I go for a mind vacation. I go to a point on the drive when we go to see our "Arizona" children, a point where I am far enough from home to feel all the duties attached to being home break away and a point before I start to take on the roles of mom and grandma for the visit. A point when I am just me. It's a moment of freedom. Just me and David in the car. What's outside is not relevant. It isn't even very geographically appealing. It is just the place where the worries and stresses go away: I can't do anything about what's behind me for now and I can't yet do anything about what's in front of me. When I take my mind vacation, this is the place I go. Just for a minute. Can't take a long time. Too much to do.

Pause. Go there. Okay.