We are all a work in progress

I've said and done some awful things in life. Nothing criminal, really, but, I've said mean things to people I love. I've acted selfishly. I've acted violently. Some of these recently. There have been periods of better behavior. Periods of calm. I have not really given adequate focus to my spirit, though. I have not put effort or intention into cultivating lovingkindness and compassion—at all. Even with my blip last spring, it quickly fell flat.

I feel like I have come to a place, though, now, where I can take the leap. That phrase comes naturally to describe what I mean to say, and is coincidentally the title of a book I'm reading (slowly) right now. Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears is Pema Chodron's latest. It focuses on shenpa or "attachment" and helping the reader see how certain habits of mind tend to “hook” us and get us stuck in states of anger, blame, self-hatred, and addiction. The idea is that if we can recognize these patterns, they instantly begin to lose their hold on us and we can begin to change our lives for the better. She talks about how this path entails uncovering three basic human qualities—natural intelligence, natural warmth, and natural openness. "Everyone, everywhere, all over the globe, has these qualities and can call on them to help themselves and others," Pema says.

I am only at the beginning of the book (I am reading at least 3 others concurrently, but do need to focus a bit, don't I?) but boy do I need it! I have been having a lot of difficulty in my relationship with my husband lately. I have been feeling like he is very selfish and uninterested in my happiness, to summarize a whole host of painful details. I am trying to muster the spiritual and emotional strength to not be so self-centered myself, either (ironic that I am accusing him of this, while I am saying "I am not getting enough"). It is difficult because I feel wanting for nurturing myself.

I also have issues of shenpa with judging and always trying to find fault. Even in abstract things or things that don't directly affect me. Parenting, politics, whatever. Pema, in an interview with Bill Moyers, notes that there is "something delicious about finding fault, even in ourselves," and we do have to let it go to find peace. Not surprisingly, this comes from insecurity.

Pema says, "Alot of us are just running around in circles pretending that there's ground when there isn't any ground...somehow, if we could learn to not be afraid of groundlessness, not be afraid of insecurity and uncertainty, it would be calling on an inner strength that would allow us to be open and free and loving and compassionate in any situation. But as long as we keep trying to scramble to get ground under our feet and avoid this uneasy feeling of groundlessness and insecurity and uncertainty and ambiguity or paradox or any of that, then the wars will continue, the racial prejudice will continue, the hatred of [people with a different sexual preference, skin color, politics] it will always continue because you can't avoid being triggered..." The trigger she means is the shenpa.

So, I was all wrong in my recent post (and so many other things) about "avoiding situations that oblige you to be inauthentic." No, you have to embrace the discomfort. Perhaps not be inauthentic, but understand that there is no separate self and be mindful of why it is you are uncomfortable.

I think that sometimes, to some people, I come off as confident, but in reality I am actually quite insecure. I have made a life project of scrambling for ground and as I am aging, it is beginning to become quite clear that ground is shifting and that my best investment, per se, is in my spiritual wellbeing.

This may sound selfish, but my spiritual seeking has been spawned partially from a sense of wanting to be protected. I have come to a point in my life that the only way I can be content and assure my sanity is through spirituality. People will always do annoying things. Why are they annoying? It must be me. Why am I threatened? (I am finally admitting that what I feel is threatened!) I know that I will never achieve great wealth, no matter how hard I work—there have been missed opportunities, and we could save, save, save and work very hard and then suffer an economic meltdown beyond our control. My interest is, at least partially, in developing the spiritual strength to weather that, should it happen. I am an aging woman and my beauty will fade, no matter how healthy I keep myself. I need to be comfortable in who I am beyond how I look. My child may not do everything I want. She may disappoint. My husband may be cruel. My friends may abandon me. A whole host of awful things may befall me. I simply can't pin my wellbeing on things that are inherently fleeting. What's more, all this lifelong grasping for ground has left me feeling not at peace and even when I let go, just a little, and think on things in the direction of mindfulness, I begin to feel more peace. So, I think, it works!

I have to be honest with myself without being too hard on myself, though, and this will enhance my compassion toward others. And compassion toward others is certainly a much more worthy goal than protecting myself, isn't it? One may want to say "we are all works in progress," but the first thing that came when I captioned my image and got the idea for this post was "we are all a work in progress"—the singular—which is a little magic in its observance of something universal and whole, and that there is no separate self. So hard to remember, but so important.

To Hell With All That—Flipping the Joneses the Bird, Namaste

I just finished reading Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That, prompted by an interest in her after first reading her latest, Girl Land. The tag is "loving and loathing our inner housewife" and that dichotomy is there throughout the book. I'm never really completely sure what she's embracing or eschewing, and it may just be observational social commentary, not really pushing for anything, though it seems she leans toward the stay-at-home mom model, or at least acknowledges its value. She disses social climbers, from her apparently upperclass roost. She makes me glad I dropped out of "the game."

Flanagan tosses me back and forth with agreement and disagreement with her, or maybe more accurately between feeling an affinity then non-affinity. For example, I like how she critiques the middle class tendency toward social climbing ostentation with their fancy princessy weddings, but then later I don't see how someone who isn't even working could justify having a 9-5 nanny, even if she has twins.

She inspired me to purchase the book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson because I like to know how to do things and I like reading. But, on the other hand, I am not going to become superhomemaker. Actually, that’s not what the book is about. I think Flanagan uses it as more of a contrast to the Martha Stewarty world of flair and superficial graciousness when she deconstructs the oppressiveness of real housework in the post-feminist era. To me, the whole housework drudgery bit is so tired. In today's world, we have lots of modern machines and fairly low standards and low level of formality in our lives when it comes to keeping homes so I just don't see it as that difficult to maintain a generally acceptable living space and get home-cooked meals on the table.

Back to the mothering part, Flanagan seems very pleased with herself for staying home with her babies, but again, she had that nanny. What gives? She seems to write from a place of privilege, which is fine, suggesting a return to old-fashioned values re-enacted in a highly stylized 50s cum 80s manner, whereas my model is 1970s lower middle class. She expresses a certain disdain for the highly-engaged stay at home mom that rubs me a little the wrong way—even though sometimes I feel it, I'd never articulate it so plainly.

I liked a lot of Flanagan’s observations about the “executive child” and moms shuffling their charges round and round from one highly enriching activity to the next—a topic by now that has been hashed out ad nauseum but still seems to be “an issue” (To Hell With That was published in the mid-90s). She ties this in nicely with the “experts’” call for unstructured time and regular family dinners—which some experts say must be scheduled, ha ha. Flanagan observes that family dinner “requires a mother who considered putting dinner on the table neither an exalted nor a menial task, and also a collection of family members whose worldly ambitions are low enough that they all happen to be hanging around the house at 630." This is totally me and my household. And I know my kid is only 4, but while I see her participating in an activity or two, I don’t see it overtaking our lives and as I always remind myself—thank goodness I only have one so I can manage these sorts of things. Yet, in our family of 4, with two kids, we still managed this growing up.

Flanagan goes on to say "If children are to have unstructured time, they need a mother at home; no one would advocate a new generation of latchkey children. But she must be a certain kind of mother—one willing to divest her sense of purpose from her children's achievement. She must be a woman willing to forgo the prestige of professional life in order to sit home while her kids dream up new games out in the tree house and wait for her to call them in for a nourishing dinner. She must be willing to endure the humiliation of forgoing a career and of raising tots bound for state college."

I know she must be being facetious, or is she? Luckily for me, our state has some really, really fabulous colleges. Maybe the fact that I am hoping for the top state college just puts me in a different (lower?) league than those of whom Flanagan speaks (and herself?) but I don’t care. Epiphany: I am beginning to really see the glories of being a middle-class bohemian, being reasonably comfortable but not rich or caught up in social climbing—and not giving a fuck about the Joneses. This is me.

Flanagan also analyzes the "mommy wars" a bit, invoking Dr. Spock, citing "one of the most compelling appeals for full-time motherhood I've ever read" (her talking there):

"The important thing for a mother to realize is that the younger a child, the more important it is for him to have a steady, loving person taking care of him. In most cases the mother is the best one to give him this feeling of "belonging," safely and surely. She doesn't quit on the job, she doesn't turn against him, she isn't indifferent to him...If a mother realizes clearly how vital this kind of care is to a small child, it may make it easier for her to decide that the extra money she might earn, or the satisfaction she might receive from an outside job is not so important after all."

This was in regard not to those mothers who had to work to actually make ends meet or even those with special professional training who felt they must work because they wouldn't be happy otherwise, but to a third group who would just "prefer to, either to supplement the family income, or because they think they will be more satisfied themselves and therefore get along better at home..."

Flanagan, predictably, because she is one of those "professional" women, noted:

"Obviously he's right about a mother being uniquely suited for the full-time care of her children. What more persuasive argument could there be than his simple and moving description of the maternal bond? What he could not have predicted was that such a huge number of women would fall into his second category. Mothers with professional training are thick on the ground these days, and their desire to work is at once more complex and more profound than the great man imagined. To be a woman with an education and a desire to take part in the business of the world—to have a public life only one-thousandth as vital and exciting as Dr. Spock's—yet to have one's days suddenly dwindle to the simple routines of child care can handily diminish what is best and more hard-fought in a person. It isn't simply a matter of ‘extra money’ or ‘satisfaction.’ For many women the decision to abandon—to some extent—either their children or their work will always be the stuff of grinding anxiety and uncertainty, of indecision and regret."

To that, I was at first humbled, or softened, because I though, OK, maybe I was just never a professional or ambitious enough woman and that is why I could so easily opt to stay home with my kid for her 0-5 years. Also, it helped that I was able to work part time from home. Still, it wasn't a big deal. I like the work I do, but it's for money, it's a minor part of my identity that could be filled with something else if need be. Maybe that's why I don't get the issue for people who "don't need the money." Still, it's their choice—whatever.

But then, I sit here and think, how self-aggrandizing of them, of many of them, anyway. They're not all cancer-curing or even baby-delivering doctors, or even teachers, many are financiers just making money to make money and they love what they do, so vulgar. Some are producing crappy TV. I mean, these are the things you'd leave an infant in daycare for? And because they identify as “professionals” this is part of their identity they can’t let go of? It seems more just like an issue of different personality types to me, more than anything else. I know I must try to nurture my softened, humbled thoughts on this and set aside the critical ones because the negativity doesn’t do me any good personally. I guess it is helpful that I can identify my personality and to allow my focus to be on nurturing the positive in that, and if I have some underlying desire to be evangelical about it, highlight the ways it works for me instead of trashing other personalities.

Girl Land—Embracing the substance, transcending the style

Caitlin Flanagan's latest, Girl Land, discusses the challenges of raising girls in a cultural landscape devoid of "commonly held, child-appropriate moral values." She notes something I have definitely felt during my few years of parenting—that "the 'it takes a village' philosophy is a joke, because the village is now so polluted and so desolate of commonly held, child-appropriate moral values that my job as a mother is not to rely on the village but to protect my children from it." It's funny, I like the substance of much of what she says, though she's a completely different kind of woman than me, style-wise. In Girl Land, the things she positions as so essential for girls were not at all essential for me. Prom? Didn't go. But maybe that's my problem—or my advantage. I tend to eschew mainstream markers and rites of passage, and their associated confused trappings.

Many contemporary feminists seem quite flabbergasted, if not offended, by Flanagan's assertions in Girl Land. I don't buy them all wholesale, but they don't seem wholly unreasonable either. She tells parents to take a "15-minute tour" of the web, typing the word "porn" into Google and seeing what happens. Been there, done that. Yeah, there's a lot of scary shit out there. So, age-appropriate, you teach them that there are some really creepy people out there, on one hand, and on the other hand, that sexuality is complex, and what's most important is autonomy. She suggests parents make their girls' bedrooms "internet-free zones." I honestly don't know how I feel about this one, as someone who is often online all day long. She says that an adolescent girl needs quiet downtime for contemplation, and I actually agree with her on that point, moreso for reasons of quieting the mind than concerns about a girl getting into trouble with web-based sleaze. She also urges parents to get a girl’s father involved in her dating life. Agreed. Her father has to be realistic and already have an established, healthy, non-authoritarian relationship with her, though. She emphasizes that "giving a girl limits doesn't limit the girl." I really like much of what she has to say, but at the same time, the stylings of her "Girl Land" conjuring images of poster beds, pink pillows and princesses seems so contrived—not like my teen years, not how I envision my own girl, with her non-frilly tendencies.

She calls for a counter-culture, but seems a little stuck in old-fashioned, mainstream culture when it comes to how I’m reading her execution of things. I’m on board with her substance, though, if not her style. Flanagan writes:

The question parents of girls must ask themselves is to what extent they want their daughters raised within this culture, and to what extent they want to raise them within a counter-culture that rejects the commercialization of sexuality, the imperatives toward exhibitionism and crudeness. Creating a counterculture is hard work, but it can be done, and it is my strong belief that the young women who emerge from Girl Land having been protected from the current mainstream values are much stronger and more self-confident than those who have been immersed in it throughout their adolescences.

I think I can do this. I can admit to probably being out-of-touch with contemporary teen culture so I might not know “how bad it is out there.” I do read things about frat houses, bros, “slutty” girls and I see news items about how women are portrayed as sex objects in videos and fashion. I saw the trailer for an upcoming movie, Miss Representation, which “exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality.” I get it, but I have to ask, if so many people are aware of this, why does it continue? Do people just not have the guts to eschew mainstream cultural drivel? I can imagine someone saying I am naive and that it is going to be really hard to keep my kid from wanting to be a part of the crap culture when she is older. But, I am managing to create a healthy environment for her now in ways that, according to popular anecdote, many find difficult. So, maybe I have a good start, a leg up. But I have no doubt that I will have to remain vigilant. You know, actually be engaged with my kid and have a real relationship with her!

So, what the hell happened?

"Why did you say you were finished with this blog in June and now there are posts starting again in December? What happened between June and December? What's with these new posts? What the hell is going on? Are you a personal trainer now?" All fair questions! Let me explain...

No. I am not a personal trainer now. In fact, I've gained, like, 15 pounds, since the June "Fin" and am now trying to lose them. Maybe this will make me more likable to other women? Although it seems now that many of the moms I am encountering are 5-7 years younger than me and many more pounds lighter, but that's cool. I'm doing my journey.

I'd said I'd stop blogging because I felt like it was maybe not good for me or something, but the truth is, I have ideas and they keep coming. I tried blogging more publicly on a domain attached to my name, but I don't think I want to do that because I want to have the freedom to say things I may later wish to reneg and to just generally let fly with thoughts more than I might want to actually attach to my "in real life" person. In real life, I just want to get along with people, help my kid navigate friendships, school, etc. and not cause any trouble. But in my mind I have thoughts I want to hash out and it's for my own mental health that I'm going to blog, as needed, right here. So, that's where we are today.