30. Being a twin.
31. I have never felt the slightest twinge of fear because of my age.
32. Having close friends, even if I don't see them often.
33. A husband who knows how to plug a leak in a tire.
34. Figs
35. Inspirations
36. Our garden (such as it is)
37. My new shoes
38. A new haircut
39. The beginnings of fall
40. Sweet Caroline's smiles and hoots
41. Jonah's funny expressions
42. Canning Jars
43. Birds in my yard.
44. local honey
Saturday, September 25
Thursday, September 23
Stories with Students
Class started up for me a few weeks ago, and for the most part it's been pretty simple. My lesson plans and quizzes and presentations have all been finished sometime before school started so it's mostly been autopilot, until yesterday. Maybe that's why I was such a mess yesterday morning.
Last semester my first speech was a demonstration speech. You know- they demonstrated some skill. Thrilling. But I started thinking about it and I realized that I had total freedom on my first speech and I wasn't using it.
So this semester they are telling a fairytale. It's been interesting to watch which stories they choose to tell. you can tell the ones who are really nervous about the assignment. They choose things like "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" or "Jack and the Beanstalk." But I've had a couple who have chosen stories like "King Thrushbeard" and one who even chose "Frau Holle"- a story that I've been wanting to learn for a while now. I'll let you know how it goes.
*****
 |
| It got a little messy. |
On a totally different note, I've been working on a few small projects around the house lately. One of them is this shirt that I made for Jonah. I got the idea from I Am Momma. She's got a lot of great ideas for boy friendly crafts.
I used a bleach pen and traced a line drawing of a tractor, and then I went back and embroidered the tractor lines on the bleached spots. My first attempt was a little messy and the bleach bled more than I intended, but it al kind of makes it look more like a kid's drawing- which is actually what I was going for. I also had a pretty interesting adventure with wonder under. I bought the wrong kind (the sewable kind for applique) so it had to be redone, but at least I know what I'm doing now. I'm hoping that I can make several more for the fall. She has a cute robot pattern, and she shows you how to use fabric spray paint as well. I really want to do one for Caroline, too, but so far I can't really think of a good idea that isn't flowers or butterflies... and I get kinda sick of pink. I'll let you know how that goes, as well.
Monday, September 20
1000 Gifts (post #1)
Recently I started reading/following a blog called New Nostalgia. She has started making lists of blessings- a post of about 25 at a time and because of the title of the post, I'm assuming she's trying to get to 1000.
It seemed like a good idea to me to really think through the ways in which I am blessed. So here it goes...
1. My Children
2. My husband (I could not ask for a better man)
3. My adjunct job (how awesome is it that I have to opportunity to get out of the house and deal with college kids?)
4. My home
5. My van
6. The gas in my van
7. the local library
8. My Mom
9. The abundance and variety of food available to me.
10. That Jonah is incredibly verbal (what a blessing)
11. My degree in Storytelling
12. Strawberries
13. Religious freedom
14. God
15. Sunshine
16. Electricity
17. Clean water
18. Good friends
19. books
20. photos
21. My Sisters
22. My health
23. The fantastic birth experiences I've been able to have
24. Good friends who check on me when I don't sound like I'm doing very well
25. wind chimes
26. peanut butter
27. porch swings
28. nap time
29. Fall
It seemed like a good idea to me to really think through the ways in which I am blessed. So here it goes...
1. My Children
2. My husband (I could not ask for a better man)
3. My adjunct job (how awesome is it that I have to opportunity to get out of the house and deal with college kids?)
4. My home
5. My van
6. The gas in my van
7. the local library
8. My Mom
9. The abundance and variety of food available to me.
10. That Jonah is incredibly verbal (what a blessing)
11. My degree in Storytelling
12. Strawberries
13. Religious freedom
14. God
15. Sunshine
16. Electricity
17. Clean water
18. Good friends
19. books
20. photos
21. My Sisters
22. My health
23. The fantastic birth experiences I've been able to have
24. Good friends who check on me when I don't sound like I'm doing very well
25. wind chimes
26. peanut butter
27. porch swings
28. nap time
29. Fall
Saturday, September 11
Why are you here?
At the first workshop this weekend, Carol Birch began by asking if there was anything that any of us were specifically hoping to get out of the time with her. Several people offered suggestions of things that they were looking for, but I wasn't entirely paying attention. I was thinking about what I was trying to get out of my time. I realized that I wanted to learn to multitask. I had already heard lots of Carol's workshop before (not that I didn't learn anything- quite the contrary) but I wanted to hear it, and learn from her, while simultaneously trying to care for a child. Because this isn't really an option for me right now.
I was nervous because I had Caroline with me and if she fussed I might have to leave, or I might annoy the other participants. I didn't want to be rude, but when you are a child's sole source of nutrition, you can't exactly leave them at home. I was lucky. She slept through most of the workshops on Friday. She didn't do as well on Saturday, so I missed some of Bill Harley and Willy Claflin's performances this afternoon, and I decided that she wasn't going to be cooperative enough to take her to Charlotte Blake Alston's workshop- but for the most part she did great.
I proved to myself that I could do both at one time- she wasn't perfect, but I could deal with that. I'm really wondering how other storytellers do this. I know that there are other gals my age with kids who still manage to perform regularly. There is one in particular that I am thinking of, and I really want to know what her secret is. Is her husband just insanely supportive, or does she have a live-in nanny? I don't know.
Anyway... I managed to get more out of the weekend than I was hoping for.
I got to see an old friend that I hadn't seen or heard about in a long time. She was doing well and doesn't live all that far away. I'm hoping to get to see her again.
We got to take Jonah to see storytellers- something he probably only thought his mom did, up until now.
And I relearned a few very valuable things that I'll talk about some other time- it's getting late.
I was nervous because I had Caroline with me and if she fussed I might have to leave, or I might annoy the other participants. I didn't want to be rude, but when you are a child's sole source of nutrition, you can't exactly leave them at home. I was lucky. She slept through most of the workshops on Friday. She didn't do as well on Saturday, so I missed some of Bill Harley and Willy Claflin's performances this afternoon, and I decided that she wasn't going to be cooperative enough to take her to Charlotte Blake Alston's workshop- but for the most part she did great.
I proved to myself that I could do both at one time- she wasn't perfect, but I could deal with that. I'm really wondering how other storytellers do this. I know that there are other gals my age with kids who still manage to perform regularly. There is one in particular that I am thinking of, and I really want to know what her secret is. Is her husband just insanely supportive, or does she have a live-in nanny? I don't know.
Anyway... I managed to get more out of the weekend than I was hoping for.
I got to see an old friend that I hadn't seen or heard about in a long time. She was doing well and doesn't live all that far away. I'm hoping to get to see her again.
We got to take Jonah to see storytellers- something he probably only thought his mom did, up until now.
And I relearned a few very valuable things that I'll talk about some other time- it's getting late.
Thursday, September 9
...in which Chara realizes she should be doing something else.
I should be preparing for class (rereading my notes- the powerpoint is done and I am loathe to give a quiz on a day when I almost cancelled class), or taking a bath, or just crawling under the covers to be ready for tomorrow. So, why am I not doing one of those things?
Lets back up to a day some months ago when I was on the phone with a storyteller who was doing an interview with me for Storytelling Magazine. After I got off the phone I realized that I had an entire conversation to justify the complete lack of storytelling in my life right now. And yet I am still paying the student loans and pretending that this is not the case.
It was on that day that I realized I was truly lame.
LAME!
Why wasn't I involved with storytelling in Oklahoma? There's a story slam here in OKC once a month. There are all sorts of events going on around the state and even fairly close. And what am I doing...? Jack Squat! Using my kids as an excuse not to get involved and not to develop myself into something that could lead to a professional experience of any sort.
So, I'm tired of being lame. I'm going to the OKC Storytelling Festival tomorrow to attend some of the workshops and get to know some of the local storytellers. At the very least I will get to hear from some very talented storytellers.
And here I am, the night before, staying up too late.
Truth? I'm kinda nervous. I'm going to be taking Sweet Caroline (no way around this since I am her source of sustenance) and I'm going to have to drive back and forth to teach my class tomorrow. I'm going to have to meet people I don't know and try not to feel like an idiot. I'm going to have to hope that these people didn't read the article about me in SM and see straight through it to the fact that I am LAME.
Saturday, September 4
Math is life (part 2)
This is, in part a sequel to the original Math is life post from February.
"I did find that I liked Geometry. As a sophomore in high school I took an advanced geometry class and I loved it, even though it was really hard for me and I still didn't get everything. I liked how ordered it was and how spatial. I could picture the problems in my head and usually I could get myself from point A to plane X, though often, I couldn't explain how."
That quote is form the original post on Math... And much like the original post, this one is also inspired by NPR.
I was listening to This American Life today and their theme was Family Physics. I absolutely suggest that you follow through the link and listen to the show (sorry, it won't be available until tomorrow). It's about the way that theories of physics can be applied to life- to relationships and humanity, not just math and science. According to the show, mathematicians and scientists hate it when people do that kind of thing. I think they should just be glad that people are interested in what they have to say, but hey, that's just me.
They use the theories of Ocam's Razar, The Trajectory and Force of Bodies in Orbit, The Mediocrity Principal, and the Casmir effect. You can look all of these up in google... I'll wait.
Now that you know what they are you can see how they all seem to have very relevant connections to general principals about life. For instance, according to Ocam's Razar, the simplest explanation is usually the easiest. It may not be the truth, but it can certainly be the easiest answer. So, yeah, life needs math- even higher level math theory... but understanding that theory, and being able to apply it? That's a whole other matter.
****
Recently I've been looking very closely at a lot of stories about women and the transitions that they are required to make, so that I can (maybe) make sense of some of the transitions that I am making. I've found it (at the very least) frustrating. They all seem very descriptive of the problems women face in trying to transition smoothly, but less descriptive of how that complete metamorphosis is made without destroying the woman, or her marriage.
I was/am still struggling with how to make the transitions in life. How do you become a mother? It's not like you can simply spin a cocoon and come out with all of the changes complete. My hope was that some theory might come out of the fairy tales that I've found so many other answers in. Instead I can only find the ultimate destruction of the woman in the story, or the dissolution of her marriage. It seems like all of the mature women in Fairy Tales are wicked witches, evil stepmothers, hags, cild abandoners... All except Mother Holle. I'm still looking at her story. But there is no answer coming out of my reading. No simple answer anyway. Maybe I'm not entirely sure of the question I am asking.
****
So what do you do when you don't understand a math problem? You ask your teacher to help you understand. When it comes to stories I've learned more from David Novak than any other storyteller. Listening to him tell a story is a magical experience, and from classes with him I can say with all sincerity that it is mostly because he spends a great deal of time trying to understand the story himself, and very carefully combines the stories that he tells. So who else did I have to ask?
In an emailed response, David reminded me that "Campbell suggests that the male need for myth and ritual is largely motivated by a deep sense of alienation from the divine. Whereas women appear to have a direct connection to the divine via the moon and birth, men feel the need to manufacture that connection via rites of passage. For example, women have an inherent rite of passage with the onset of menses and so on."
This is certainly something that I knew... have known since graduate school, but had perhaps dismissed out of hand because of the seemingly ludicrous identification of women as innately divine. It sounded like some Freudian, misogynist idea that made women the "angel of the house." And yet, somehow, being told this again struck an entirely different chord for me.
How do we successfully make the transitions that life will inevitably require of us? We accept the fact that we are being divinely led to change, and trust that we will be/are given the faculties we need to make those transitions.
In math I frequently heard that "The whole is equal to the sum of it's parts." And while you will see many people question this in non-scientific applications, it is a generally held principal. So can't we also theorize that when a thing goes through a metamorphosis it already has the necessary components to change, has acquired the components in order to make those changes, or is able to produce them as a bi-product of that change?
Not being particularly scientifically minded I can only think about this in a very abstract kind of way, but it seems to me that when a butterfly changes into a caterpillar it is not a coincidence that it is attracted to a specific kind of leaf to be eaten. Nor is is coincidental that birth involves a very physical, emotional period of time that we refer to as labor. What are we working toward as women who are laboring? We are working to extricate the child from our body, in both a literal and figurative way. Youth leaves us and we become mother.
A period of adjustment always comes after the transition, but the thing we must realize is that we are already provided with what we need to make the adjustment. It is only when we are unable to trust that what we need is already made available to us that we become the hag, the jealous queen, the wicked step-mother. If we cannot accept the transition we will doom ourselves. To accept it, we have only to realize that we have in us the needed components to be the thing that we are trying to be.
****
Is it always easy to change who we are? Of course not. If you look back at Ocam's Razar again- the simplest answer is the easiest- you will see why so many stories have women who refuse to transform. It's not easy to transition from maiden to wife, from wife to mother, from mother to matron. Each of these transformations leaves us grief stricken over a loss. Can we mourn the loss and move forward? Perhaps that's part of the question.
****
What is the whole, and what are the parts? Does metamorphosis mean that the original product and the end product are always completely equivalent? Math is life. Math is problem solving. Life is a problem because it is mysterious to those who are moving through it.
So what do we do with a problem?
You identify what you know and what you do not know. You identify the problem. You try to figure out the rules. You simplify. You always look at things and try to decide if they make practical sense. You cast off the fear of making mistakes. Embrace the mistakes.
"I did find that I liked Geometry. As a sophomore in high school I took an advanced geometry class and I loved it, even though it was really hard for me and I still didn't get everything. I liked how ordered it was and how spatial. I could picture the problems in my head and usually I could get myself from point A to plane X, though often, I couldn't explain how."
That quote is form the original post on Math... And much like the original post, this one is also inspired by NPR.
I was listening to This American Life today and their theme was Family Physics. I absolutely suggest that you follow through the link and listen to the show (sorry, it won't be available until tomorrow). It's about the way that theories of physics can be applied to life- to relationships and humanity, not just math and science. According to the show, mathematicians and scientists hate it when people do that kind of thing. I think they should just be glad that people are interested in what they have to say, but hey, that's just me.
They use the theories of Ocam's Razar, The Trajectory and Force of Bodies in Orbit, The Mediocrity Principal, and the Casmir effect. You can look all of these up in google... I'll wait.
Now that you know what they are you can see how they all seem to have very relevant connections to general principals about life. For instance, according to Ocam's Razar, the simplest explanation is usually the easiest. It may not be the truth, but it can certainly be the easiest answer. So, yeah, life needs math- even higher level math theory... but understanding that theory, and being able to apply it? That's a whole other matter.
****
Recently I've been looking very closely at a lot of stories about women and the transitions that they are required to make, so that I can (maybe) make sense of some of the transitions that I am making. I've found it (at the very least) frustrating. They all seem very descriptive of the problems women face in trying to transition smoothly, but less descriptive of how that complete metamorphosis is made without destroying the woman, or her marriage.
I was/am still struggling with how to make the transitions in life. How do you become a mother? It's not like you can simply spin a cocoon and come out with all of the changes complete. My hope was that some theory might come out of the fairy tales that I've found so many other answers in. Instead I can only find the ultimate destruction of the woman in the story, or the dissolution of her marriage. It seems like all of the mature women in Fairy Tales are wicked witches, evil stepmothers, hags, cild abandoners... All except Mother Holle. I'm still looking at her story. But there is no answer coming out of my reading. No simple answer anyway. Maybe I'm not entirely sure of the question I am asking.
****
So what do you do when you don't understand a math problem? You ask your teacher to help you understand. When it comes to stories I've learned more from David Novak than any other storyteller. Listening to him tell a story is a magical experience, and from classes with him I can say with all sincerity that it is mostly because he spends a great deal of time trying to understand the story himself, and very carefully combines the stories that he tells. So who else did I have to ask?
In an emailed response, David reminded me that "Campbell suggests that the male need for myth and ritual is largely motivated by a deep sense of alienation from the divine. Whereas women appear to have a direct connection to the divine via the moon and birth, men feel the need to manufacture that connection via rites of passage. For example, women have an inherent rite of passage with the onset of menses and so on."
This is certainly something that I knew... have known since graduate school, but had perhaps dismissed out of hand because of the seemingly ludicrous identification of women as innately divine. It sounded like some Freudian, misogynist idea that made women the "angel of the house." And yet, somehow, being told this again struck an entirely different chord for me.
How do we successfully make the transitions that life will inevitably require of us? We accept the fact that we are being divinely led to change, and trust that we will be/are given the faculties we need to make those transitions.
In math I frequently heard that "The whole is equal to the sum of it's parts." And while you will see many people question this in non-scientific applications, it is a generally held principal. So can't we also theorize that when a thing goes through a metamorphosis it already has the necessary components to change, has acquired the components in order to make those changes, or is able to produce them as a bi-product of that change?
Not being particularly scientifically minded I can only think about this in a very abstract kind of way, but it seems to me that when a butterfly changes into a caterpillar it is not a coincidence that it is attracted to a specific kind of leaf to be eaten. Nor is is coincidental that birth involves a very physical, emotional period of time that we refer to as labor. What are we working toward as women who are laboring? We are working to extricate the child from our body, in both a literal and figurative way. Youth leaves us and we become mother.
A period of adjustment always comes after the transition, but the thing we must realize is that we are already provided with what we need to make the adjustment. It is only when we are unable to trust that what we need is already made available to us that we become the hag, the jealous queen, the wicked step-mother. If we cannot accept the transition we will doom ourselves. To accept it, we have only to realize that we have in us the needed components to be the thing that we are trying to be.
****
Is it always easy to change who we are? Of course not. If you look back at Ocam's Razar again- the simplest answer is the easiest- you will see why so many stories have women who refuse to transform. It's not easy to transition from maiden to wife, from wife to mother, from mother to matron. Each of these transformations leaves us grief stricken over a loss. Can we mourn the loss and move forward? Perhaps that's part of the question.
****
What is the whole, and what are the parts? Does metamorphosis mean that the original product and the end product are always completely equivalent? Math is life. Math is problem solving. Life is a problem because it is mysterious to those who are moving through it.
So what do we do with a problem?
You identify what you know and what you do not know. You identify the problem. You try to figure out the rules. You simplify. You always look at things and try to decide if they make practical sense. You cast off the fear of making mistakes. Embrace the mistakes.
Wednesday, September 1
What if...?
I read this last night and I decided that it might be worth a try.
The idea is to brainstorm five “what if?” questions as quickly as you can. Take this assignment seriously, but do it fast. What will happen is that you’ll begin to dream, you’ll stop thinking of life as stagnant, and you’ll be reminded that life, for the most part, is what you make of it.
So here are my 5 questions...
1. What is I just enjoyed being a Mom as much as possible and stopped letting myself get upset and stressed?
2. What if I committed to eating no sugar for a month, like Emily did?
3. What if I committed to running a 5K before the end of November and really started running 3 times a week to prepare?
4. What if I committed to doing Jonah's calendar time with him every day?
5. What if I really became involved with storytellers in the area?
What if I did?
What are your 5 questions?
The idea is to brainstorm five “what if?” questions as quickly as you can. Take this assignment seriously, but do it fast. What will happen is that you’ll begin to dream, you’ll stop thinking of life as stagnant, and you’ll be reminded that life, for the most part, is what you make of it.
So here are my 5 questions...
1. What is I just enjoyed being a Mom as much as possible and stopped letting myself get upset and stressed?
2. What if I committed to eating no sugar for a month, like Emily did?
3. What if I committed to running a 5K before the end of November and really started running 3 times a week to prepare?
4. What if I committed to doing Jonah's calendar time with him every day?
5. What if I really became involved with storytellers in the area?
What if I did?
What are your 5 questions?
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