Yikes! and then a thought about the park...

This was the title of an email I got from one of my girlfriends, today. Maybe I have been reading too much academic nonsense lately (check), or maybe I am just starved for friend conversations while working (check), but I also just loved something about these paragraphs describing "mom life" (I edited out the yikes! part - it wasn't related):

...we biked to the H.L. park today. They have three different sized playgrounds all together and a great wading pool. It is of course right next to the small beach there. It is great. I wanted to tell you that so many moms go there on their own and just end up talking while pushing kids on the swings, spotting them as they go running across a bridge or flying down the slide, or of course, as we try to tell our kids how great sharing is as they steal each others pool toys. I always go there on my own and inevitably get into 3 or 4 conversations with other moms.

With kids really close to ***'s age we have actually exchanged numbers. The conversation always starts with "so how old is your little one?" ... then "and whats his name?"... then, of course, you have to say "what a great name." Then it goes on. It is like a whole new culture you enter into at the park, crazy, but also encouraging. The other place has been the R.V. Coffee Shop... I have met a couple moms there and then actually ran into them at the park, too. **** makes me meet people, she is a social butterfly. She has absolutely no problem going up to a kid and pointing to his nose and saying "noe." When she pokes him into the eye to say "eye" then we almost always get into a good conversation over a laugh. The parks and coffee shops have definitely kept my sanity.

It is the deeper conversations about the transition into parenthood, the identity change and balancing my needs with ****'s that I hunger for at times. You definitely cannot just create this with just anyone either. I have tried, realized that it is not easy, not everyone loves to talk about this stuff. And those who want to talk end up being so different from me that I get frustrated anyway, thinking to myself "should I think like that? why doesn't anyone approach it like me? or why do I feel like a bad mom after talking to you...?"

You know, I am dying for the day to talk to you about motherhood. (Not, that I don't already talk to you about it.)

I love how real she keeps it-- I wonder is that part of being a mom? Saying it like it is, not thinking so much about what she says, being so right on because of that?

Although, I would say she has always been this way. There are very few people I know that I think are comfortable with being truthful, with just putting something out there, and with you doing the same back. I think this makes for great friends because they are the people that have to think a lot less with. There is not a lot of wondering what they are really thinking, if you can really trust them, or if the fact they are so wrapped up in themselves they can't really listen to you.

It is reassuring to me that I have friends like this, that send me emails like this, that talk about things like the park and motherhood and yikes!. It makes me less scared to be a mom, happy to be a friend, and more excited to open my email.

The Mountain Top

After 21,500 words and close to 90 pages (double spaced) I officially finished my last chapter of my thesis tonight. Ahead is the work of edits and formatting, and of course my defense, but nothing compares to being done with producing new material.

I almost can't believe it, but... AMEN!

My 'Master' of Life

Tonight my brother called to say hi and to "check in with" me. He, like everyone else lately, asks what Jff and I have been up to, expecting great things... Makes sense, we are usually up to a lot in the summer time.

And to respond to that question lately I say things like, "well, I am working my thesis...", which I feel like I mention all the time but a) it is all I think about and b) it is all I do and c) it provides a reason to people for why I am doing NOTHING cool.

To which my brother responds, "Man, I don't think I could ever write that much no matter what... I mean I know not all programs make you do it to get your master's, but still... I am a master of life, I don't have to write, I just have to talk and hang. I am really good at both of those things and I can do a lot of them."

And then I told him that I was jealous of his master's degree in life. There is a lot more fun, beer, and time with friends in that program.

Friends like AP

Today I met a good friend from college for lunch. Although he now lives in California, and we never talk long-distance, we remain good friends. Over salads today, it was as though we hadn't missed a beat. We were talking about teacher filing systems, cats, common friends, and rivers up north. We laughed a lot at ourselves and just had a good time.

In some ways it is strange that we remain such good friends. We are NOTHING alike. We never take the time to call or hardly email each other. We don't share the big things in life- I didn't invite him to my wedding, I forgot to tell him I stopped teaching, I can't remember the name of his long-time girlfriend who lives in California, nor the city he teaches in.

But then again, I think there are many reasons why we remain friends. One is that we have similar senses of humor and common interests- music, the outdoors, education.

Another is that we have a shared history- knowing each other since college is powerful, especially because we always floated in and out of each others lives for the period of our lives after college. He visited me in Milwaukee while I was miserably lonely and encouraged me to do some things differently. I visited him on a nature preserve in South Carolina a summer when he needed a touch of reality.

I also think that we have always felt like there is nothing to lose in being able to really talk about things honestly. We talk about the harder things in life, wonder about the things we are not good at, just as easily as we talk about the things that have gone well for us. There seems no point in not being ourselves, I guess. Just today, I was saying, "yeah, I am trying to be Zen about it and let go of it...but then again, I have never been very good at that, have I?" We both just laughed-- to which he said, "it is most important to know who you are and what you can and can't do--- I mean, I like to think I am that goose in the flock of geese that is at the very front, but let's be honest, I am not, right?"... too which we laughed again at the truth of it all.

After we promised to be better at staying in touch and I returned to work this afternoon, I got to thinking that friends like AP are important even though they are not a constant presence. They are the people who show up out of the blue and help you remember all the different places you have been, how much you really do "know" now, and that the unexpected is always where the treasure in life is.

On Marriage: Year II

Two years ago today... I took the leap and married Jff. It is, far and away, the best decision I have ever made. We are really, truly, very happy--- even to the extent that sometimes I have no words to explain it.

Since I grew up with divorces happening all around me, I sometimes worried it wasn't really possible to have a really happy marriage. I didn't see a lot of fighting, but I also didn't see a lot of harmony or good communication.

I don't know if I have completely figured out why some people get divorced and others are in for the long haul, but mostly I think it is what you choose. I think you choose to do the hard work of communicating, you choose to be absolutely honest with yourself and your mate, and you also choose that other person with both their faults (which hopefully you can love as a part of who they are) and their sparkling attributes every day.

I think choice also has to do with who you choose in the first place. A lot of people are great people, just not together. A lot of people are together for the wrong reasons. A lot of people get married to be married, not to be married to their spouse. A lot of people marry for the romantic moment, not for the many moments where you just need a great partner.

In the end, though, some of it is inexplicable to me. How or why did I end up with an amazing partner and marriage? In part, it is that I asked the hard questions along the way. I eventually got rid of the guys who were not right for many different reasons. In part, I am committed to doing the hard work of communicating well and putting effort into my marriage. In part, I married someone else who was willing to do that same things. In part, I married someone who is really good at loving people and especially me. And in part, I just got lucky.

So, as I wish a happy anniversary to my perpetual playmate and partner-in-crime, I am appreciating the wonder of all that is and all that will be.

Thanks also to the many friends and family who continue to be a network of support and happiness. I was really touched today by how many people remembered our day today!

A Good Day

Since for a while this spring I was really down on my job, I feel compelled to also balance out the spectrum here. In the last four weeks, I have really liked my job.

I think it is a combination of two factors: a) I am currently working on really interesting things that I am enjoying b) my direct supervisor is out on maternity leave and so her boss is my temporary supervisor. She and I get along very well. She completely trusts me to do good work (and of course I do it.) Instead of checking up on me, she checks in with me. I often find that we are working collaboratively on something where she feels no need to reinforce that she is my boss. I know it, so does she, but she is happy to involve me in many different areas of the Center's work. I am also suspecting that there is a c) to this whole thing and that is because I know more about the breadth of our work than my direct supervisor does (and she knows more about communications) she often prefers me to work in her area lest she have the superior amount of experience and knowledge to "supervise" me. Since supervisor has been gone I have been doing things that are much more germane to the experience I have (and amen to the lack of communications work I am doing currently.)

Today, for instance, I worked with a group of 10 high school kids from Missouri from 9-12. I was teaching them how to coach PA. (Afterwards, they commented on how good I was at my job in front of my boss- always a plus) Over lunch I met with marketing student who is doing an internship with us this fall. After that I worked with a few people over email- I am organizing one of the Center's co-director's book tour to college campuses across the country this fall and am currently negotiating his honoraria with different colleges. Finally, I sat down and did a two-hour oral history interview with a guy that is a Iraq War veteran and an anti-war activist. At the end of the day, I found out that I am getting a big "salary augmentation" for the grant work I am doing with the Center. Hmmm.. It was a good day. And today I like my job.

Thesizing Continues with a faint light at the...

72 pages (19,000 words) and counting. I am gutting through Chapter 5. My self-imposed deadline of July 15th for finishing a draft of the entire thing may be reachable if I don't count Chapter 7: the conclusion... Who needs a conclusion to a 90+ page document anyways? I think it will have to be something like: There you have it: informal, democratic education in the C-R neighborhood is sups-dups. The End.

Extra-curriculars

Lately, at 10:55 three days a week I leave my desk at work and walk with anticipation through the sunshine to a small building two blocks away. It is here that an hour passes in the blink of an eye, where I am transformed into a kid, and where we play games like the human knot.

For the last two years I have worked in the neighborhood surrounding where I go to school. I have volunteered with Somali women in an exercise class. I have also done a lot of research here for the thesis that I am now writing. But this is the first time that I have been able to work directly with some of the kids of the neighborhood. It is a blast.

It all started when I attended a meeting of all the youth workers in the neighborhood this spring. The topic was about summer programming and what each program was doing for the tremendous number of youth in the neighborhood. It was at the meeting I brought up the idea of using a program that Center came up with. (It is a educational program that helps youth decide what public work they want to do in their neighborhood. And then they do it.) The leader of a newly developing program was interested.

After many meetings and with a great stroke of fate I found a university student who still needed a field experience for his undergraduate degree. He was willing to co-lead the program with me. I was asked to be his teacher-mentor, and to monitor his learning for the university program. Meanwhile, I get to spend an hour a day with kids working to do neat things in the neighborhood, in the summer. Fun.

The kids, who range in age from 10-14, have decided that they want to do a mural on a business wall in the neighborhood that gets "tagged" often. They want to dedicate it to some of the recent victims of killings in the neighborhood.

So today, I spent an hour visiting a community center in another part of the city to see a mural program that they run with kids. I made it back to the university in time to meet with the U student before the kids came (they had decided they wanted to hold meetings in one of our conference rooms- there is nothing cuter than when they are running a meeting at tables where they are like miniature men and women). I strategized with "B" about how he was going to coach the kids through some challenging work, and then the kids arrived.

After the kids came, I coached a girl through calling a community organizer for information on how to do a mural. She was so nervous she spent 10 minutes first writing out everything she was going to say and still insisted I sit next to her the whole time while she made the phone call. She was so cute on the phone and only once covered the mouth piece and said, "what should I say?". After she finished the call, I told her how well she did. She smiled and said, "This is fun. I guess I am good at this." I only said, "I couldn't agree more."

I am so proud of the work the kids are doing, I am proud of how well the U student is doing in working with the kids, and on top of it I am having a blast. I am literally on cloud nine when I leave the community center and walk back to work everyday. This is what I would like to do full-time: work with university kids to help them run community programs or participate in meaningful service learning projects where they develop a greater understanding of themselves while they also make great difference to the kids they work with.

So, now about that mural...I am on it.

Once More, With Feeling

I am currently reading a book (as a thesis study break) that includes Joan Gould's essay entitled, "Once More, With Feeling" which tells the story of having a baby at age 40. It was a touching essay, with the following excerpt that I really liked:

"Would I have decided to have baby if I had known that Martin would die in his fifties? The other way around, would I have survived as well without a child who demanded strength from me rather than weakness? How can I tell? At the important junctures in our lives, when we fall in love, marry, conceive a child, pick a vocation, we are inspired by our gut if we are lucky, rather than our brain. We choose a direction, with no idea where it will take us or how we will change along the way.... I can only say that my choice of direction -- which is not the same as destination -- was as conscious as any I have made in my life. As the philosopher Martin Buber once put it, 'All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.'"