Beanies and Babies: Re-post from Christmas 2009

Below is a writing assignment I've given my students for the previous two years, and below is the model I shared with my students last year. I invite you to consider your own holiday wish list and its significance...

Task: "Identity is often shaped by the things we long for." -- Bich Minh Nguyen

Choose one item that is on your holiday wish list (or one item that is not on your list) and reflect on what this item's presence on (or absence from) your list reveals about where you are in your life right now.

Questions to consider for inspiration: How does this item's presence/absence reveal...
-- a facet of your personality?
-- an emotional need or desire?
-- a fear or anxiety?
-- a regret? -- an accomplishment?
-- a change in your ideological outlook?
-- an image that you have of yourself?
-- a trait/talent/goal/idea that you wish to cultivate?
-- a change that you wish to enact in yourself or in your life circumstances?

See example below...

My family doesn’t do a traditional gift exchange for Christmas; as our family has grown, shopping for everyone has become an unmanageable task, but we all like the idea of exchanging gifts for the holiday. So, we’ve opted for a “Secret Santa” gift exchange in which we each create a list of our favorite stores and suggestions for gifts and then choose one person’s list from a hat and purchase only for him/her. For the previous few years, my list has required little revision. I still wear basically the same sizes, and I still want basically the same things: clothes, handmade jewelry, books. However, this year, I had to change the stores that I listed as my favorites, and I was forced to acknowledge, in doing so, that I am at a different point in my life than I was at when I created the first version of this list three years ago.

At 25, when I made my list, my favorite store was listed as “Anthropologie,” and I still say this store when I am asked about my favorite place to shop. I realized, though, in revising my Christmas list last month, that I have not actually purchased an item of clothing from this store in almost four years. At 25, I could pull off funky-hippie-chic, but the closer I get to 30, the more ridiculous I feel in a mohair sweater with mismatched buttons, a ruffled lace peasant skirt, and a beanie. I feel like I used to look like a trendy fashionista, and now I just look like a half-drunk homeless woman in this sort of outfit.

I suppose what makes me most anxious in reviewing my 2009 Christmas list is that it is conspicuously bereft of all that redeems women from the trauma of turning 30, such as décor for one’s first house or baby paraphernalia for one’s first bundle of joy. (My only home is a too-small rental and my only bundle of joy has fur.) I realize that I am not where I thought I’d be at this age, and I am currently in the process of digesting what this means. It is not that I couldn’t buy a house if I wanted to, albeit in a less desirable neighborhood and without the stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors of my current apartment, but a house of my own nonetheless. It is also not as if I can’t have a baby, at least to the best of my knowledge. Up until now, I just haven’t wanted either of those things enough to make the necessary sacrifices to attain them (loss of sleep, loss of figure, restrictions on time and travel, depletion of savings account, etc.). Does this make me selfish? Stupid? Abnormal? I have always believed that it does not – it makes me self-aware, a person who strikes out on her own, who has A Life.

But now, I am no longer a fashionista – I shop, I admit, at Ann Taylor... and I like it! I wear cardigans in too-bright colors and button-down dress shirts….to bars. I refuse to wear “ultra low rise” jeans because I don’t like my lower back to show. (The other day, I almost purchased a pair of dangly Christmas earrings a la my mom circa1987. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the earrings were $3.99, but I didn’t have cash and there was a $1.00 fee for credit card purchases under $10. Thank God for holiday price-gouging!)

So, here I am. I am in flux. A childless woman in what are dangerously close to mom-jeans who is, for the very first time, seriously contemplating the prospect of filling out that high rise waist with a baby belly. Does this mean that I must succumb to becoming old and hopelessly uncool? Must I carry a sensible purse and vow only to purchase shoes that are comfortable to walk in? Will I have to adopt the suburban mom bob haircut and start sporting seasonally appropriate holiday sweaters? Perhaps, but, for the first time, I think I’m willing to risk it.

And who knows, maybe I’ll break out that beanie on days when I’m too busy chasing kiddos to do my hair…

Imaginings: A "Book of Questions"-Inspired Poem

I'm currently teaching my students to use "mentor poems" to try out writing poetry. The idea is that you select a poem whose structure, style, and/ or approach you admire, and then you rewrite the content, mimicking the poet's style/structure/approach. It's an ideal approach to poetry for those of us who are a bit gun-shy about poetry-writing because it allows the writer the comfort of a tried and true form and just leaves the challenge of coming up with content. 

I chose Pablo Neruda's "The Book of Questions" for inspiration because I admire his ability to conjure completely unique images in his readers' minds with seemingly simple, yet really beautiful questions. One of my favorite lines from his poem is "Tell me, is the rose naked/or is that her only dress?"

Here's what I came up with...

When will apricots learn that it takes
                  more muscles to frown than it does to smile?

Do mopeds know that the world is
                 a wide and vast place?

If we forget to remember the clouds,
                 will they pout?

Is there anything more precious than tripping
                 on the uneven ground of a cobblestone street?

How often to bedbugs
                 bite off pieces of the moon?

Why are people always
                 unfaithful to daisies?

Why does the aspen tree wake up
                 so early in the morning?

Where should we store our broken hearts
                 if not from southern tree limbs?

Is there anything more tragic
                than a dancing catfish?

The Social Network: A Review and Some Thoughts

A friend and I took part of our Sunday to see the new film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher, written by Alan Sorkin and starring Jesse Eisenberg. It was two hours well-spent (partly because the film was entertaining and partly because we can now become part of the on-going conversations about the film, as it has become something of a social phenomenon itself). For anyone who has read anything about Facebook's contentious beginnings, the actual storyline doesn't contain any really new or shocking information, but the organization of the story--alternating between flashbacks at Harvard and a legal deposition in which the Zuckerberg character settles accounts with Harvard students who claim a stake in his company--allows the viewer to simultaneously get both the backstory and the contemporary controversy, which lends additional significance to both time periods.  I felt that the acting was all strong, but Jesse Eisenberg deserves commendation for his ability to present a character that is both entirely annoying and socially inept and yet also completely sympathetic and likeable. An impressive feat. (I knew he'd do great things when I saw him in Adventureland!). Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin (Zuckerberg's original business partner and his best friend), and he is pretty much the most adorable person ever. He just looks so perfectly and tragically heartbroken when Zuckerberg does him in that you just want to kiss him for his sweet naivete. Or at least I did.

For me, perhaps the most fascinating element of the film is the fact that Sorkin makes no claims of the screenplay's objective veracity in terms of his character depictions, but he does claim to have done extensive research to ensure that the story itself is as close to accurate as it could be. Interestingly, as I learned when I heard Justin Timberlake interviewed on NPR this week, Sorkin actually went so far as to forbid the actors from contacting their real-life counterparts to get additional information or perspective beyond what the screenplay offered them. Sorkin's decree sort of begs the question of whether or not one can get a story just right without getting the people just right, and it also asks whether a person is a reliable source of information on himself or whether he is, as Sorkin seems to think, the least reliable source of information on himself. Sorkin's approach certainly enters the film into the increasingly popular genre of "creative nonfiction" -- one of my absolute favorites right now due in large part to its use of narrative techniques to tell real-life stories. (I just read Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, and he claims that the human brain is hardwired to remember information presented in story-form, which means that this type of writing has incredible potential for those of us who are educators.)

The other reason I loved the film may seem silly in comparison, but here goes: I loved that Zuckerberg wore hoodies and flip flops to meetings with high-powered attorneys and high-level executives. Recently I've been thinking a lot about the claim that we, as educators, make to our students about behaving in "professional" or "academic" ways; we tell them that they must dress a certain way to be taken seriously, that they must speak and write in a certain way to get ahead. We give this advice because we know that they have a better chance of finding success if they work within the established systems; we know that fighting the system is very hard work. While that advice is likely true 99% of the time, I love the idea that some people say, "Screw the system!" instead of "Work the system." Nothing brings me greater joy than small revolutions (even one-man revolutions will do), and so I loved Mark Zuckerberg for refusing to ditch that hoodie. The fact that he's a billionaire now gives each kid out there the hope that the way he speaks or the way he wears his jeans or the way he does his hair is actually just as ok as any other way, even if the world tries to convince him otherwise. Norms are only norms because we all agree on them--they aren't "natural" or "normal;" they're just pervasive, and Zuckerberg's attire implicitly points that out. I dig it.

I also love the fact that there's at least one CEO out there in the land of capitalism who believes in a higher standard than just making money. Art is not dead yet! The film doesn't completely explain Zuckerberg's reasons for rejecting advertisers as sources of income for Facebook (he just claims that Facebook will lose its "cool" factor if he allows advertising dollars to enter the picture), but in an interview I read with him, he states that he believes in Facebook as an idea, as an art, and he doesn't want to sell it to the highest bidder so that it can be destroyed or revised in ways that are beyond his control (also the reason he hasn't yet taken the company public). 

Below are links to Facebook-related articles and essays that I love, if you have an interest in checking them out...

The Boundaries of a Breakup

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

The Face of Facebook

Books I've Recently Loved: "What is the What" by Dave Eggers

I recently posted this piece to my new school's "book forum," so I thought I'd share...

Through a first-person narrative, Dave Eggers takes on the persona of Valentino Achak Deng, a “Lost Boy” from Sudan’s southern region who is forced to flee his village after an Arab militia’s violent attack during the Sudanese civil war in the 1980s.  Uncertain of his family’s fate, Achak, along with thousands of other “Lost Boys,” is forced to make the harrowing journey on foot to a refugee camp in Ethopia.  The boys face incomprehensible tragedies along the way, within the borders of the camp, and even in the US once they arrive as refugees, but their journey speaks to the human capacity to survive and to the strength of the human spirit.  Eggers and Deng both assert that the story is a “true life novel,” raising interesting questions about the nature of truth and fiction and about the future of the novel as a literary genre.  Alternating between present and past/Africa and the US, the narrative technique offers readers a sense of the disconnect that Deng must have felt as he made his way so far from his home.

As a young boy, Deng’s father tells him a story, cautioning him against choosing “the What” — or the mystery choice — and instead choosing the known.  Deng, however, does not always have the luxury of that choice.  For this reason, his story is an important one as we contemplate what it means to live in a globalized world, a world in which we are all connected in what are often far from mutually equitable ways.  The novel raises questions about the boundaries and benefits of nation-states, the impact of imperialism in Africa, and the roles and responsibilities of the developed world and of individual citizens in reaching out to our human family around the world.  I would have to say that I found some of the most engaging parts of the novel to be the ones in which Deng encounters life in a so-called “First World” country for the first time in his life.  His confusion, horror, and wonder in response to life in the US can teach us a great deal about our own society and its social issues.  I would recommend this novel to anyone who wants to be both entertained and educated or who is looking for a way to gain a better understanding of the myriad ways there are to experience both the best and the worst of our globalized world.

Labors of Love

In honor of Labor Day and "Back to School" workdays ahead, I'm posting this poem by Marge Piercy. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

--Marge Piercy

A Scolding from Our Mother of Exiles

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
                    --Martin Niemoller, 1946

For my new work commute, I get to drive right by the Statue of Liberty every day. Each time I make the drive, I marvel at Our Lady of the Harbor, standing majestically, arm upstretched, and I feel so lucky to be just where I am. In recent weeks, though, it wouldn't surprise me if she turned around, sternly placed her hands on her hips, and shook her head disapprovingly at the land she represents and the city she overlooks. As Americans all over the country debate the building of an Islamic mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, she must wonder at our hypocrisy.

Time magazine is asking this week if America is "Islamophobic" (in short, yes), and every news pundit from NYC to Kabul is asking viewers to weigh in on the Lower Manhattan controversy. Those respondents who are opposed to the construction near Ground Zero seem mostly to argue that because it is so close to the site of the Twin Towers, the center would be an affront to the families and friends who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. There are two main points of concern for me with regard to this sentiment. The first is simply that Muslims, as a group, are not responsible for the actions of a few fanatics, just as Christians, as a group, are not responsible for Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Timothy McVeigh. Most frighteningly, though, it is not only in Manhattan that American citizens seem to oppose the construction of mosques. A protest took place in Murfreesboro, Tennessee last month against the construction of a mosque in that city (which is approximately 900 hundred miles from Ground Zero). Protesters offered the following insights, which I found courtesy of ABC News online:

Stan Whiteway (apparently aptly named) stated, "They seem to be against everything I believe in, and so I don't want them necessarily in my neighborhood."

Mark Walker claimed, "We are fighting these people, for crying out loud, we should not be promoting this."

From the Associated Press, I found that Bob Shelton said, "They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group."

Really?? REALLY?? Yes. Really. People think and say these sorts of things in 2010. Yikes.

So, how far is far enough, Manhattan? Two block is too close to Ground Zero, but is four blocks ok? What about 10 blocks? Will Tennessee be ok? What if Murfreesboro says that if Manhattan can block the construction of a mosque, so can they? What if every town says they don't want a mosque within their city limits? What if they decide that synagogues are equally problematic? What if they decide that Catholic churches are undesirable as well? Martin Niemoller's words could easily be frighteningly prophetic. Although the mainstream news media seemed mostly to focus on the portion of Time's recent poll that revealed that 24% of Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim, the more concerning numbers were the ones that revealed that 28% of respondents said they believe that Muslims should not be permitted to serve on the Supreme Court, and nearly one-third said that they don't believe that Muslims should be permitted to run for president. Nazi Germany, anyone? As someone who just wrote a thesis arguing that nation-states' first step in perpetrating genocide is depriving a certain group of citizenship status, these stats terrify me.

Perhaps the most interesting contradiction within this whole controversy is that of the 61% of Americans who oppose the Lower Manhattan mosque's construction, I'm willing to bet that a good many of them identify themselves as patriotic Americans, yet their very opposition to this project makes life so much harder for the men and women serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. These men and women in uniform work every single day on the mission of counterinsurgency, and a large part of completing that mission means both winning hearts and minds AND meeting with radical factions to attempt to bring them to the table of democracy. When Al-Jazeera broadcasts reports on the mosque in Manhattan and the staunch opposition to it that many Americans feel, how on earth will our servicemembers be able to convince the people of these regions that Americans are not there to destroy Islam or to discredit their faith? Furthermore, it seems to me that if our servicemembers can bring themselves to sit across the diplomatic table from radical fundamentalists in the name of bringing peace to the regions in which they serve, those of us back in the U.S. can find it in our hearts to accommodate a moderate Islamic cultural center whose goals are outreach and education. In other words, we have a responsibility to honor the service of these men and women and their willingness to put their lives on the line to bridge the gap between the U.S. and the Middle East. To do otherwise would be unpatriotic.

In short, these men and women could really use some help from us in mounting an ideological offense. The U.S. government and military both recognize our inability to physically prevent every attack. It only takes one person to bring havoc, grief, and pain into the lives of thousands, and we already know that our defense mechanisms will fall short in certain situations. Which is why we must use our offense effectively. We need to show the world -- particularly the Muslim world -- that we practice what we preach and that we truly do welcome diversity of thought and experience. That diversity is what has formed the core of our American identity. If we want to preserve our reputation as the "land of the free," we can't be thinking in the terms of "us" and "them" -- we're all "we."

The most insightful comments I heard on the Lower Manhattan mosque debate came from a caller to WNYC/NPR. The caller identified himself as Yasser, and he said that he is a proponent of building the mosque at the initial site in Lower Manhattan because, as a resident of Lower Manhattan and as a father, he wants his children to grow up with the understanding that there is no contradiction between being a New Yorker, being a Muslim, and being an American. When the interviewer asked him if the mosque could represent the unity of those identity markers if it were just a bit further from Ground Zero, Yasser added that telling Muslims that they could build the mosque further away would be a lot like telling African-Americans during the civil rights era that if they just sat in the middle of the bus, it would make things a whole lot easier. I tend to think that our Mother of Exiles, standing her watch in the harbor, waiting to welcome those huddled masses, would feel similarly.

Filling Up My Plate

"If you aren't certain about things, if your mind is still open enough to question what you are seeing, you tend to look at the world with great care, and out of that watchfulness comes the possibility of seeing something that no one else has seen before."

-- Paul Auster

When I initially thought about moving back to my hometown, I worried that I'd have too much on my plate because I'd have so many family members and friends so close by. I never actually thought about my literal plate, though.

Prior to moving back to New Jersey, I hadn't eaten meat in over two years, but I've recently discovered that being a vegetarian is a lot more difficult in New Jersey than it is in California. Being a vegetarian in California is as common as, say, being an Italian in New Jersey -- many people are; it's just part of the demographic. Hence, in California, people always seem to ask dinner guests if they eat meat, restaurants always offer multiple vegetarian options, and there are even many specialty stores and restaurants that cater to the dietary preferences of vegetarian eaters. Here, not so much. The last time I visited New Jersey, my dad asked if chicken on the grill was good for dinner. When I reminded him that I didn't eat meat, he replied, exasperated, "For Christsake. Chicken's not meat." (I'm fairly certain that he does actually believe that.) Restaurants seem to be similarly confounded -- yesterday I had to order a proscuitto sandwich without the proscuitto, and the deli staff seemed to need multiple verbal confirmations that my order had been correctly recorded.

Perhaps, though, the most uncomfortable experience is being served meat as a dinner guest in someone else's home. My husband and I had dinner at his grandmother's house last year, and I politely declined her pot roast on account of the fact that I don't eat meat.  Her response: "But it's so tender!" After 10 minutes of attempting to explain (in as dinner-table appropriate terms as possible) that my decision not to eat meat did not hinge on its tenderness, I gave up and finally accepted that grandmothers -- particularly those who cook for Italian families -- do not speak vegetarian. When my host is a non-family member, though, I can't even muster the nerve to tell him or her that I don't eat meat. I take some, push it around on my plate, bury it with my side dishes, and then bring my own plate to the sink when we're done eating. This routine is stressful, and it often leaves me quite hungry (and drunk if there's alcohol served, as I can't hold my liquor on an empty stomach).

I've recently wondered whether life would be easier if I just ate meat every now and again, so I tried it. As a dinner guest a few weeks ago, I ate a friend's baked ziti with meat sauce. All seemed to be going well until my stomach started gurgling and churning and generally urging me to hurry on up to the bathroom ASAP. As it turns out, when your body hasn't eaten something like meat in years, it forgets just how to digest it without incident.

So it seems to me that the best course of action would be to eat meat with some regularity, so as to avoid what would henceforth be known to my husband as The Baked Ziti Incident. Doing so, however, requires some sacrifice of what I see as My Principles. There are several somewhat vague reasons that I gave up meat, the usual suspects, really: environmental reasons involving the destruction of forestland to accommodate grazing land, ethical reasons related to the fact that we could feed the world if we used grazing land to grow grains instead, ethical reasons involving the ways in which animals are raised and slaughtered, health reasons related to hormones and antibiodics in food. (Notice that none of these reasons actually involves disliking meat -- I do like it, which makes it extra tempting to eat it when it magically appears on my dinner plate!) I should confess here that I'm not even really a vegetarian because I've never quite been able to give up seafood, which technically makes me a pescetarian. I tend not to identify myself as such to other people, though, because no one knows what it means, and then I feel like I sound even more pretentious.

So, here I am. I'm trying to negotiate a balance between my desire to honor my principles, my desire to avoid being a giant pain in the ass to those I love, and my desire to eat meat just because it tastes good. I think the solution is simply to be less anal -- eat meat when you feel like eating it and attempt to do so every so often. The problem with that solution, though, is that it means learning to be comfortable in the gray area. For me, absolutes, ironically, tend to be easier to live by. For some people, myself included, being OCD about certain things is actually easier than not being that way. It's harder to live in the middle than on either end because when you're on the ends, you know right where you are. In the middle, you have to make a kind of peace with your own amorphousness; you have to become comfortable in constant state of mild uncertainty. But, in the end, I think I choose uncertainty. It's harder, but it also leaves room for change and adaptation, things I feel are almost always good for me. We'll see how I do...